Taxes... and other inevitabilities

Every year I tell myself that this is probably the year that I give up and take my shoe box of receipts and scribblings to a professional tax preparer. And every year I buy a copy of TurboTax and tell myself, "Well, I'll just rough it in and get a feel for the year and then I'll take that to the tax guy." And so far, after I've roughed it in - and polished it a little - and re-worked it a lot - and asked my friend the Tax Accountant about the really tricky stuff - I've filed the return myself. Maybe this is the year though. My goodness, there's a lot of new stuff to handle this year - Social Security and Teacher Retirement and self-employment tax and 1099-R Distributions, and Roll-Overs and Roll-Unders. Okay, I made that last one up. I think.

We have always itemized our deductions because we come out ahead when we do. It has always been a no-brainer because of charitable contributions. So I figured at the very least, I would do the grunt work for this category and have all that neatly wrapped up if I do take it to someone. That shouldn't be too hard, because we've kept meticulous records of all these transactions all year and that way we avoid situations like, "What do you mean you don't know what the $10 cash you gave in Sunday School class last January 28th was for? Didn't you get a receipt?" Or, "Hon, do you have any idea what this Home Depot receipt for $24.96 for a 'Geo Pass' was for, and why is it in the tax receipt envelope?" or "Why did you distribute this item for plastic Easter Eggs for the Children's Department in 'Charitable Other Non-Specific Out-of-pocket'? That should have gone in the 'Church Other Specific Non-Cash' category."

It took all day (ever notice the fantasy numbers on the tax forms where they tell you how much time filling out this form should take?) but the Charitable Contribution section is firm. Well, it will be if she ever figures out what that $10 cash in class was for.

Now. Does anybody know where you put the $12 property tax you paid to the Stephens County tax collector for owning .00084151% of an oil well?