I've spent my morning (and afternoon) trying to do my taxes. (And I stress "trying"). If I were a professional tax preparer, I would be earning something along the lines of $3.50 an hour. That's how slow this is going. I think it was when I clicked "continue" on Turbo Tax and my refund went from $3800 to negative $7800 that I knew I was doing something wrong.
One of the first notices I received from Turbo Tax was something like, "You received $XX.xx for your state refund from 2005 in 2006. That is federal taxable income for 2006." Wait, what? My state tax refund from last year is considered income again? And you're taxing it? Jesus Christ, dude. (How is that even legal?)
After about 4 hours (and removing a whole bunch of deductions that didn't quite seem right), I moved onto state tax filing. (At this point my right leg has fallen asleep from sitting on the couch funny this whole time).
While filing out the state tax form, there's an option for income received for "Compensation for false imprisonment". I'm thinking, "Wow, that would suck. Imagine being falsely imprisoned (which is horrible enough), getting money for it (which wouldn't make up for it by any means), then having to give part of it back to the fucker that imprisoned you in the first place." Then before I finished that thought, there's an option for "Ottoman Turkish Empire Settlement Payments". Ok, now that's not even real. Is it? This is either a really funny joke or I'm hallucinating from sitting here all day. If I ever get diagnosed with some sort of terminal illness, I'm checking that box for shits and giggles.
At this point I'm mentally exhausted and decide, "Whatever. Submit. Submit. Submit. Continue. Damn it. Whatever. Are we done yet? You want how much to eFile? Whatever. Fine. Submit. Submit."
It's 4:00 pm, I've had a bowl of cereal, 3 cups of coffee and haven't showered yet. But the good news is - I'm done with my taxes for the year. And the negative $7800 wasn't real (nor was the huge refund, but I'm still pleased not having to owe anything.)
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When I used to live in Chicago, my preference in local newspapers were in this order:
The Chicago Tribune
The Daily Herald (a distant second)
The Countryside (to see if anyone I know got arrested)
My high school newsletter
The free ones that were mostly ads and classifieds
The flier made my the 3rd graders down the street
The Chicago Sun Times
There's not a real point here. Except that I'm linking to the Chicago newspaper I am least fond of (and because I'm from Chicago I feel it's ok to end that sentence in a preposition). I'm doing this because they're on top of the fastest growing religion - Duderonomy.
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Finally, kick off your weekend right with the "50 funniest Homer Simpson Quotes".
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