Taxes: It doesn't have to be this complicated
It sounded better in my head
I’d rather go to Costco on Sunday directly after church lets out for three months straight than file my taxes.
I must be mentally ready to do my taxes; otherwise, it's too stressful. Once or twice, it wasn't very easy, so I paid someone else to do it during those years.
Each year, I go through this routine, with part of a day spent on each task:
Gathering all statements and receipts
Ensuring all transactions are entered correctly into the bookkeeping /accounting software
Tracking down all official forms sent by institutions and organizations
Each task sucks quite a bit of energy. If we are measuring by spoons, it is definitely a three-spoon activity.
Then, a waiting period occurs during which I no longer think about taxes. This lasts 2-3 weeks or so. During that time, forgotten forms appeared for transactions I’d forgotten about. They get moved into their special digital folders.
Then I wait again.
Only when I’ve sufficiently forgotten that I must file my taxes, or else, do I remember. There will be something I see in the media or hear in passing conversation that reminds me, “Oh, yes. I must still file my taxes.” An eye roll always accompanies this.
A little more waiting.
I never know when I’m finally “ready.” It changes each year.
When I am ready, I wake up one morning, have a calm morning with coffee, and spend the rest of the day entirely free of distraction or interruption. Something clicks, and I’m ready to begin. I place my phone on do-not-disturb and only pull up one browser tab and the curated folders with all the documents.
I’ll painstakingly answer the questions provided by the tax software, cautiously waiting for the one question that, as a technical writer, I know is completely out of place, not worded correctly, or linked to something on the backend most users cannot see that should have appeared elsewhere.
In that moment, I feel both fear that I’m going to screw up and be audited six years from now and frustration on behalf of the developer that was overridden about the wording of the question during a pointless meeting.
What does the question really mean?
What are they actually asking?
The whole thing could have been more specific, removing doubt or confusion for the user.
Eventually, I make it past the question, hoping I didn’t jackknife this entire process and must start over from the beginning.
On and off throughout the rest of the process, I’m alternating answering questions and scolding the user interface, the question flow, and the corporation for not listening to their best and brightest engineers. Had they done so, the user experience would have been both thorough and clear. Proper flowcharts and a good technical writer would have solved both issues.
Momentarily, I think about changing tax companies, but I’ve been with this one place for so long that I fear another company screwing it up or not following through on their promises, leaving me worse off. Giving a side eye to others who have had worse experiences this year with other companies adds to the fear.
At the end, when the software checks for errors, I usually hold my breath. An hour and a half later (sometimes more), I look up, realizing everything is OK, and I'm free for another year to not think about this. I hold my breath again while waiting for the confirmation text: The IRS has accepted your return.
To reward myself, I do one of three things:
Do nothing for the rest of the day
Clean the apartment like a pregnant woman involuntarily nesting or like someone who’s decided to get rid of every last memory of their ex and “start over”
Shower, grateful to be done with it all, ridding myself of its snarky residue
There is no reason for taxes to be so complicated for a United States citizen.
If the money we need to pay for shelter, live and operate in this society, and provide access to our healthcare wasn’t threatened with eventual wage garnishment or with possible eventual jail time for not filing, many, I think, would handle life far differently than we do currently.
But it’s all intertwined, forcing us, as a people, to live and operate within systems that are not truly designed for us.
Someone might say, “Just pay someone to do it for you.”
No. I don’t enjoy paying $60-$120 for each additional form the process needs to be compliant or as an upgrade charge on a DYI package. I don’t always get to deduct expenses from those additional forms, even though they’re required based on the situation. To me, it just adds salt to the wound.
As of this writing, I haven’t yet filed my taxes for this year.
I’m just not ready yet.