Fear of Taxes? You're not alone!

[ellenkushner]

I used to be this person:

It afflicts normal-looking people who function well in other facets of their lives. The symptoms include failing to file tax returns for years on end and squirreling away unopened letters that carry the return address of the Internal Revenue Service. Take a taxpayer (using the word loosely) whom we’ll call Mr. V. . . . . (NYTimes, 4/12/09)

In fear of penalties, I would send a ridiculous check to the IRS every year, hoping to have heard the last of it. But those scary letters kept coming (and remaining unopened) . . . . Eventually, I put every piece of paper I had in a big box, and took it to a woman in Boston who did a lot of taxes for artists, especially members of the Boston Ballet. "You can't imagine," she said. "They tour, they stuff things in envelopes, they lose them.... You're not so bad."

I've been a reformed character ever since.

If you've gotten your taxes in already, Yay, you! If you're working on it til midnight tonight, good luck, good coffee, and don't forget the chocolate!

Comments

[nohwhere-man.livejournal.com]

Picked mine up from the accountant yesterday and mailed them immediately. 'course that was 08 -and- 07, which had somehow slipped through the cracks... I'm terrible about it, I collect all the receipts and other detritus in January but don't actually do anything with it until late March. Or early April.

With all the scaryness of the IRS, the friends who used to work there all say that as long as you file -something- by the 15th and aren't trying obvious fraud, they're pretty flexible.