have a confession
to make – I love doing my taxes.
I think it’s extremely interesting. Sorry, but I do. I manage
to learn something new about it every year that can save me money for posterity.
Of course, that’s probably because they manage to change the rules just
about every year. This year is especially fun for two reasons – first,
it looks like I’ll get to itemize for the first time (more forms to fill
out!) and second, it looks like we’re going to get quite a chunk of money
back.
We had a lot of circumstances combine to get both of those events to
happen. First, there’s three of us this year instead of two, so I
get extra deductions and credits and all kinds of fun stuff. I also
got two bonuses this year, and they take huge chunks of taxes out of bonus
checks, so I’ll stand to get some of that back, too. Then we bought
a house, giving us all kinds of extra things to deduct (like mortgage interest,
mortgage points, real estate taxes, etc.). Finally, I had two different
jobs, so between them, they ended up taking out more than the maximum allowed
for Social Security taxes, so I’ll get some of that back too. After
all is said and done, based on my preliminary, unchecked calculations,
we stand to get back about $3,000 – and that’s just from the Federal government.
Fortunately or unfortunately, we already have plans for spending all
of it. We’ve been looking to get a second car since ours was stolen,
but we don’t want to spend much on it. I have to admit, however,
that I’m not exactly enamored with the idea of shopping for a used car.
Heck, I didn’t even like buying our last two new cars, and I didn’t have
to do any haggling at all for them. To me, it seems like all used
car salesmen have made a pact with Satan.
No offense, of course.
I don’t know why I have that perception. I must have seen too
many of those Cal Worthington
commercials when I was out in California – the ones where he says he can
put anybody in any car (while in small print at the bottom of the screen
it tells you that your payments will be at 15% interest for 7 years – yikes!).
Or maybe it was too many Brady Bunch episodes (like the one where Greg
gets stuck driving a lemon) – I don’t know. I just know that I’m
not very good at finagling, coercing or persuading, and in order to get
any kind of decent deal, I’ll need to perform all three.
