Thoughts on tax day
[NOTE: This is an edited version of an essay of mine from the past.]
Today is April 15th. This means that, along with millions of others, I’ll be making my way to the copy machine and then on to the post office so that my filled-out tax forms will have the proper postmark.
Ah, paying taxes. What fun! Along with close to 100% of Americans, I hate the process. It’s an attitude that unites us like almost nothing else.
Maybe you’re one of those early-birders. If so, my hat is off to you. I’m not ordinarily early, but this year I’m the latest I’ve ever been. Just looking at those booklets and forms gives me a headache. But now it’s done.
This time of year also reminds me of my father. He was both a lawyer and a certified public accountant, but it’s the latter profession that conjures up the April memories for me. He was not the Taxman (see video above) but the Taxmiddleman, the one who prepared tax forms—often of a very complex sort—and did it all by hand back in those pre-computer, pre-calculator days.
Every year starting around February—when my parents always went away to warmer climes for about ten days, in preparation for the long hard slog to come—until April 15th, my father would come home from work every night, eat dinner, and go immediately to a small table in our living room. There he’d set up shop until bedtime, around 11:30 or midnight, and then repeat the entire process the next day. Weekends it started earlier. No TV for him, and almost no relaxation, just this sitting in a chair, bending over papers and fiddling with small figures.
For those months, we kids were instructed to tiptoe around in the evenings and not disturb him. This was a tense time. We could see it in his exhausted face and bloodshot eyes.
And so in our house April 15 was a very happy day. That’s probably true for all the tax middlemen/women.
I remember my parents spending AT LEAST several days preparing their tax return every year. There you have 32 person hours in preparation, at a minimum.
These days, with tax preparation software, it takes me an hour or two to do a tax return. Well worth the $20 for the software.
One year when my parents got audited, the IRS auditor they dealt with had been one of my father’s students. Apparently the IRS auditor didn’t hold any resentments against my father for his earning a C in the course, and granted the deductions my parents had claimed.
My post office wasn’t open late.
Software is a lot higher than $20.
Software is a lot higher than $20.
With the exception of special deals, you are correct.
Search “tax software” at
http://www.frys.com/
I don’t guarantee the price will be there tomorrow, but Fry’s has had some available @ $20 for at least several weeks. And does every year.
BTW, I had a very pleasant experience at the PO. As my local was closed at 5, I went to the main one after 5. There was a a balance to weigh letters, but not user friendly- difficult to tell what it meant. There was a special table of two postal employees in the lobby especially for April 15. One went and weighed my IRS letter and told me I was fine.
My boss, a small business owner, was audited many years ago.
The auditor came in and told him, “My job is to maximize tax collections.”
My boss replied, “No, your job is to ensure that I paid the tax I owe, and not one penny more.”
My boss is scrupulously honest, and very good with numbers. He walked out of that audit without owing anything.
Your post brought back similar memories of my childhood. My father worked in a mill assembling railroad cars then during tax season he sequestered himself in a tiny office to work on his client’s returns. He subscribed to a service which sent him monthly tax updates. He paid my brother and I to put them into binders and to pull the superceded or outdated rulings. The binders must have taken up 6 ft of shelf space! This was back in the 1960s when I assume the tax code was simpler!
I can relate, as the saying goes. Back in my accounting days, I used to take some of the overflow from a CPA with a tax practice. He had recently left the corporate world and had not taken on any partners, so he was going through what your dad went through. I knew the Internal Revenue Code quite well back then, and did right by the clients, but my accounting interests lay in other areas, and I mostly took the work to help out my friend. He got paid well for his efforts (and so did I when pinch-hitting), but I had no burning desire to be faced with 20-hour work days seven days a week from mid-January to mid-April every year.