ATTENTION ALL BUSINESSES: You Stink, You Lose! No Money for You.

Blood...Sweat...Tears

It's tax time! For the past eight years I've gone to the same tax man, felt too much worry, and paid too much money. I really like my tax man. He is very personable and free with advice. He makes his own homemade wine. Every year the IRS sends me a notice of correction and an extra refund because he missed some kind of write-off, but still he's nice and the IRS is efficient. I've always considered maybe I should find someone a little more competent, but most importantly, his office is fragrance-free and his receptionist doesn't stink...

...until this year. Unfortunately his former receptionist has moved on to another job. As I pulled into the parking lot I notice the silly, little girl through the window posing at her desk. I entered the building cautiously. The smell was faint, but detectable. On the desk sat a bottle of disinfectant hand gel. She had the crazed look of a chemical addict afraid to touch her computer. I made an appointment for an hour later, but as I exited my headache was building and my lungs were hurting. On the way out the girl hollered after me, "Are you SURE you don't have a phone number?" I grumbled to my car feeling massive amounts of irritability building with my discomfort.

What is it with the fanatical need to chemically disinfect everything these days? We are now expected to wipe down every surface in our lives with toxic chemicals. How did we get so paranoid wiping down a shopping cart has become standard practice and a requirement for grocery shopping?  I get it people don't wash their hands after they use the restroom, or they drip salmonella from their dead chickens, or maybe that package of bloody ground beef is contaminated with E.coli, or that snotty-nosed little kid just sneezed all over the cart handle, but hasn't all that been going on for centuries? Why do we need to sterilized our lives with toxic chemicals in order to feel safe and secure? Is it any wonder our immune systems are so screwed up?

As I drove away from tax man's office the pain and nausea continued to build. What to do? On the way home I visited and sniffed around two other accounting offices discussing cost with women wearing excessive amounts of make-up. No one can give a price or even an estimate and all of them said the cost is limitless. Great. The closer I got to home the more my irritation mounted right along with the growing pain and nausea.

My taxes are a pain especially if I'm forced to go into smelly offices to get them done. And they are expensive due to all the forms I need to use. The good old days when I did my taxes with an easy form are long gone. Now I must calculate profit, expenses, deductions, depreciation, amortization, exemptions, interest, and then figure the actual taxes. Can I use the short form or do I need to use the long form? Do I use 8829 or 4562? Schedule C or Schedule A? And MATH. Holy cow, the math overload is enough to bring on a headache. Since we are required to pay taxes, the powers-that-be should make the process a little more user-friendly.

What are my options? Or rather, option. Singular. Do it myself and feel thankful I have one option left. I became determined to do just that and use every free resource available if need be. I reviewed all eight years of my professionally prepared tax forms, followed several sets of instructions step by step, used the IRS website for information, compared the old forms with the old documentation, compared the new forms with the new documentation, and the new forms with the old forms...four hours later my taxes were DONE! You can't imagine how many times I wanted to skip steps just to hurry it along. But I didn't. I stuck to it. I am a proud American.

I do hope I won't go to jail for doing them wrong.