Yes, I’m a broken record lately. I’ve listed the names of two big corporations two times in a row in my blog titles. (See last month’s tirade against Charter Communications Interenet Service.) I can’t help it this month—I have to say this: I love my H & R Block tax preparer!
No, no, it’s not a romantic attachment at all. It’s a professional arrangement, but she’s my friend as well and she understands what a tough financial bind I find myself in lately. She went the extra mile to help me get all the business deductions I could legally take this year and helped me get my personal tax forms in order. The end result? I don’t owe the government anything! Yippee!
This is a big deal for me, since I had been forced into submitting my tax forms as “married filing separate” because of my ongoing divorce difficulties. Without dependents and a head of household deduction, you can pay a lot (that is, GINORMOUS) amounts of taxes. And when you’re forced to itemized your deductions (since the other spouse had done so already without bothering to ask if this would be convenient for you) rather than take the standard deduction, you really do find yourself scrambling to come up with enough deductions to help lower your tax burden.
But with my tax preparer Donna’s help, we did it. Just in time, too. There’s a deadline of April 15 in the US to file these sorts of things, right?
My “bacon has been saved” as some would put it, and don’t I know it. I’m breathing a little easier at nights knowing that the taxman won’t be coming after me in a black hood, chain mail vest, combat boots, a vicious sneer plastered on his ghastly visage, carrying an ax to chop off my head… Yes, it is a silly nightmare, but most Americans possess an instinctive fear of the Internal Revenue Service. It’s in our genes somewhere next to the uncontrollable urge to yell, “Play ball!” after hearing the national anthem.
(Sorry about that IRS. I’m sure you are all very nice folks, like Will Ferrell is in Stranger than Fiction. Good move on your part to cast likeable guy like Will in that role, too.)
Has there ever been a time in your life when you felt desperate like I did this past month? Like nothing or no one could help you? Did you find out that someone could actually help you out of this hopeless situation? How did you find yourself after the experience—older, wiser, less stressed, committed to an insane asylum?
Leave me a comment below describing your experience, and I’ll choose a name from the comment-makers for a freebie e-book prize. So, talk to me—what have you got to lose? (You might just have something to gain. It won’t be extra taxes, either.)
