Maggie Rants [and Raves]

Another Year Over

by Maggie Franklin | December 30, 2009 | Bookmark +

I was working hard last night, blowing up balloons and curling ribbon, decorating the tiny new salon for the impending New Year. In 17 years I have never managed to get around to decorating for New Year’s Eve. I mean, it's ONLY a week after Christmas and it's not like I have New Year’s Eve parties at work — often I'm just too pooped to bother. But this year I was down there the weekend after Christmas and now it's filled with balloons and streamers. But that’s beside the point ...

 

The point is, it was time to give it up and come home. Which means that when I arrive today, it will feel a lot like walking in after a New Year’s party since I still have several balloons on the floor. Which is also not the point ...

 

The point is — no seriously! the point IS — that when I arrived at my humble home full of dogs and BF and doggie Christmas presents strewn across the floors, I noticed that our good friends over at the IRS aren't running late this year on their mailings. There's the 2009 tax booklet sitting on top of the dishwasher, all shiny and new.

 

The BF is not pleased. He insists that he should not be getting his tax papers until AFTER 2009 has finished. He feels that he should be able to file his taxes as soon as he receives his forms. Which would mean that he could have done it last night, making this last week of the year moot. Like he should get a tax-free week of pay because the IRS sent him his papers a week before the year actually ended. Sorry, Uncle Sam, you were impatient, you should have waited till the year was over.

 

Well. The BF is employed. He gets a paycheck every week and his boss holds a bunch of money out of his weekly pay and sends it to the Feds for safe-keeping so the BF can't grasshopper it away during the year and then pull his pockets inside out and send the the IRS a picture of him standing there looking sad with empty pockets along with an IOU for his taxes come April.

 

This is actually very smart on the part of the IRS and the BF's employer. Actually, the BF would likely be one of those annoying types who stashed his own tax-destined funds into some high-yield money market account all year long and then just blithely wrote out a check to the Feds come April while enjoying the profits from the interest he made all year. What I meant was, it would be really smart on the part of the IRS and MY employer to take MY tax-destined funds away from ME on a weekly basis. But I am self-employed and have no employer to divvy up my funds as they roll in. Consequently, I happen to be of the opinion that the IRS is the nicest collection company I've ever dealt with.

 

But, revealing my personal foibles is still not the point here. I disagree with the BF. I'm impressed with the IRS for making sure the tax booklets are in the mail in time for me to spend my New Year’s holiday doing my taxes. Not that I do that much these days! Back in the day that's exactly what I used to do on New Year's Day — my taxes. But that was also before I managed to make any money throughout the year. These days I wait until the weekend right before the due date. And I'm the person standing at the mailbox at 11:59 p.m. on April 15th, playing tug-o-war with the bedraggled postal employer over that envelope.

 

Nevertheless, it's fine by me if I get my tax booklet before the end of the year. Only problem is, I never get one! I don't know if it's the Schedule C or the Turbo Tax or what, but the IRS hasn't sent me a tax booklet in many, many years. I wonder if that translates into BF-speak as meaning I don't have to file?

 

Happy New Year everyone!

For reprint and licensing requests for this article, Click here.

a Bobit media brand

Create your free Bobit Connect account to bookmark content.

The secure and easy all-access connection to your content.
Bookmarked content can then be accessed anytime on all of your logged in devices!

Create Account