Taxing My Patience and Sanity

Guess what I have been doing lately? Preparing our income tax return! What fun!

I am very diligent in keeping my blog entertaining and upbeat. My goal is to make it a soothing respite from the frustrations of the world. So please indulge me during my annual exercise in futility. I am a wee bit frustrated and need to vent.

For the last several years, I have used the online version of Tax Act for preparing our Federal taxes. It has one quality that I find most endearing. It is free. However, there is usually something in the tax code that trips me up every year. This year was no exception. I wasted several hours coaxing the program to give me all of the prompts so that I could correctly complete the required forms for an IRA conversion. I could have gotten mad at the program. But that would be ignoring the true source of my frustration: the Federal government and its insane system of taxation.

As food for thought, chew on these statistics:
- Words in the tax code: 3.7 million
- Pages of tax laws and regulations: 67,506
- Pages in the 1040 instruction book: 161
- Number of changes to the tax code in 2008: 500
- Percent of taxpayers using paid preparers: 59
- Percent of taxpayers using tax software: 16
- Percent of IRS answers to phone queries that are correct: 90
- Number of official “tax expenditures” or loopholes in the code: 161

(courtesy of The Washington Post, 2-8-09)

And it is going to get even worse next year because the newly anointed “stimulus” (aka “spending”) bill reportedly contains 344 pages of tax changes. Oh joy.

The good news is that I completed my ordeal and our Federal income tax forms are now filed! I should return to my normal good nature shortly.

Marty assisted me by taking pictures of the whole process and creating a pictorial essay to share with you. He is such a clever fellow that he even used the ink color that is currently in fashion.

This was Donna’s composure while she compiled the paperwork and put the data into the online software.

Besides the computer software, here is another essential tool that she used.

After Donna completed the electronic forms, she went out to the garden shed and got out one of these.

And filled it up with a pile of these. To the brim.

Then she sent it all here.

And our esteemed politicians lovingly placed it all here.

WHOOSH!

The end.