‘Tis the Season

To file your taxes.

Oh joy! Oh rapture!

I usually drag my feet to the bitter end on this one, I really do. I hate it. I didn’t used to hate it when the kids were little and Tax Season lived up to H&R’s Block of that big refund! Oh, baby, I loved doing the taxes then. We needed that money, I can’t tell you how many times it pulled us out of the hole.

Then the kids grew up, they still lived at home but they didn’t qualify as ‘dependents’ anymore. Yeah, I hated Tax Season then! Suddenly that Big Refund turned into a Miniature Refund then it turned into Hey Bitch! You Owe Us MONEY!

No fun.

The income…on paper..got bigger but so did the bills.

Anyway, hubby has been out of work for over a year now. His Worker’s Comp is non-taxable. The only taxable income this year is my little paycheck from the church a whopping $14, 495.80! Oh wait…I did get $2,200.00 dropped into my bank account from Unemployment after that little debacle. I also paid them $445.00 to get my back Unemployment because they were too fucking dumb to just take it out of the $2,200.00 they owed me!!!

Have I ever told you how much I hate that dumb greedy bastard, Uncle Sam?

Ok, whatever So there $16,000.00 to declare as taxable income.

There’s 3 dependents this year because my dumb happy ass finally discovered I’d probably been ripping myself off for a long time by not realizing the Dependent Rule had changed. (Oh bother!) BUT I discovered it and used it this year. The Oldest is jobless and lives with us so she qualified.

We take the Standard Deduction and I finally realized how to shut Turbo Tax up about it! Geez, I hate it. No I really don’t have to enter all this information for you, you nosy prick, just so you can tell me what I already know; The Standard Deduction is the best option for us. For years I was drove myself crazy going back and forth between whatever company’s website owned my mortgage and Turbo Tax trying to fill in all that stupid shit that I didn’t even need. I did the same thing with car taxes and property taxes. But no more.

Asshole. I hate that thing. It knows way too much about some stuff that it is really none of its business and far too little about other things that could be prove useful.

Things like…how many stimulus checks one received.

I can’t remember what I had had for dinner on Friday, why am I expected to remember this? Turbo Tax should know just like it knows what my AGI was last year. But no, it does not and I can’t remember. I know we missed at least one and I know I told Turbo Tax that last year. Why it’s asking again…I dunno.

Gotta go over to irs.gov and find out.

What a frickin’ joy!

I tried very hard to follow the directions and sign up. I went through two step verification that I must have done at some point and don’t remember because the thing had my email address and my old cell phone number. Verify the email address. Very the new cell number…several fucking times before I realized it just wasn’t updating my info. Search around for something simple like My Account, find it, eventually. Can’t fix the phone number at first but yep I finally got that too. Verify the cell number again.

All looks good.

Try to sign into irs.gov with my newly updated info and I’m back to the Verify Me screen.

WHAT?

Try again.

Same result.

Try…AGAIN.

Verify everything..AGAIN.

Same result.

Then my dumb happy asses realizes something that truly pisses me off, this thing wants me to upload my ID. It’ll take a drivers license or State ID but it might really love to have my Passport…which I don’t have, BTW.

Yep, that was the point I decided I really hate Uncle Sam and clicked out. Went back to Turbo Tax and said; Sure, honey, I got the check, let’s move on.

Wouldn’t it be easier if we all just had little spittoons attached to our computers? Every time Uncle Sam wants to know if us….or any other God Blessed site out there….we can just spit in it to Verify our Identity.

My information is out there way more than just Enough. Uncle Sam can kiss my dumb happy ass. If anyone should know who I am it’s that bastard.

Alright fine. Onward.

I finish filling out my crap on Turbo Tax and because of the Unemployment information am forced to use the Deluxe Edition at whopping savings of just $39.00! I keep saying to whomever Max is, he’s greedy too. Funny thing though, the way it was worded or just because I haven’t had enough coffee yet, it appeared as though my $39.00 I would also get to file my State Income Tax. They always charge separate for that and I almost always tell them where to put their lips while I print it out and send it to Hartford for the price of a first class stamp. I refuse to pay anymore than that for the damn thing to go to Hartford! Yes, I am a Cheap Yankee.

I put in my Card Info and got to the bottom line where it read; $89.00!

I, at no time whatsoever, pushed the button to pay the fee. I backed out. I went back to my Federal, finished it up. I went back to the start of State and clicked the button for a paper return. I went…or really really really tried to go to…My Account to check the billing. What a POS that is! Yes, without actually hitting to submit the payment, I was charged $89.00. I tried…or really really really tried to…dispute the charge. The screen never loaded properly. Not once. Going back and forth between two screens, I was able to input the information Turbo Tax wanted, and see the charge, and get to the place to dispute the charge, I just couldn’t…submit the information anywhere.

I see I’ve been ripped off and figure; Fuck It!

I go back to the Federal and hit ‘send’.

Bye-bye.

I go to the State, where I’ve already clicked ‘I’ll mail it, you greedy bastard, thanks anyway’ and decide to end my aggravation by clicking ‘send’. That option is not available to me, although Turbo Tax says my State Return is in great shape, it also seems to be missing information. It didn’t give me an option to fill in said missing information because, yes it did take my dumb happy ass a while on this one too…said forms with missing information won’t be available until January 20th.

How do they know the information is missing if they don’t have the form?

Whatever…I had to sign up for text alerts so it will tell me when I an finish this part.

I hate places like that, and good old Uncle Sam, having my new number. I’ve gone to great lengths to keep it as private as possible even if I do endless get calls for Anna and Angel. So many I had to mumble my way through Spanish on my voice greeting letting folks know Anna, no aqui, Angel, no aqui. They still call but I tried.

In the end, we’re getting $1,600.00 back from the Federal Government which I think is quite chintzy given what our AGI is. I mean, for the first time in forever, we even got to the tax the Earned Income Credit. So is the $600.00 the Great State of Connecticut is supposed to cough up.

Oh well, it’s better than paying the bastards and we really need a dryer. Like really, the damn thing doesn’t stop spinning anymore when you open the door and it never feels warm. I think it’s just gasping as it struggles to spin loads in cold air. I’ll definitely be looking around for some time after February.

Yeah, upon hitting submit on the Federal I was told they weren’t even accepting returns until the 31st so ours is, you know, On Hold or something.

They probably should have put the info front and center in big bold black type on the first page. I would have done something else today.