Weekend Assignment #256: Is It Tax Time Yet?

I spent a good part of Thursday gathering W-2 forms and other documents and starting my 2008 income tax return. Hence this week's topic:

Weekend Assignment #256: Tax time for individuals in this country starts in late January when the tax forms arrive, and runs through April 15th or so when the tax return is due. Do you file your taxes as soon as possible, at the last minute, or somewhere in between? Is there a particular reason for this?

Extra Credit: Who actually does your taxes, and with what software or other resources, if any?

Me first:

Left to my own devices, I would probably procrastinate on the taxes, and have sometimes done so. This is very likely because finding all the relevant documents tends to be a problem, and because I get nervous about whether this year we'll owe more taxes. It's been years and years since we got stuck with a huge tax bill through [name redacted]'s incompetent bookkeeping, but I suppose it left me a little gun shy.

John feels much of the same stress over taxes, but with the opposite result. He wants to know as soon as possible whether we're getting a refund or need to come up with more money somehow. If it's a refund, he wants the money right away, especially in these parlous times. If the news is bad, he wants to know about it and begin dealing with it.

My having been out of work the last 3 1/2 months of 2008 complicated our tax situation slightly, and increased my stress over the unknown effect of it. My unemployment pittance has no deductions, so in theory I owe taxes on it, presumable at some low rate because it's not a ton of income. But at the same time, John's still making good money, which is how we're scraping by. So how does that work out? I was genuinely worried that this would be the year that we owed the IRS, just when we could least afford it.

But it isn't, thank goodness. I'm only halfway through the TurboTax screens, with all the income in and some of the credits and deductions, and already the little box at the top shows a healthy federal refund. Maybe we'll end of owing the state a little, but if so it won't be bad. I don't know where we stand there, because I haven't even downloaded the state software yet.

TurboTax, by the way, is a wonderful thing. It isn't perfect; last year I failed to enter our property taxes, which may mean I wasn't prompted to do so. But even if something like that isn't operator error on my part, TurboTax is a huge help to me. I used Tax Cut for my only tax accounting course, and that's pretty good too; but TurboTax is clearer and easier.

You might think that as an accountant, I shouldn't need the tax advice and general hand-holding that tax software provides, but I do. Prior to 2005 or so, my total experience with filing taxes consisted of doing it once before I got married, if that (Mom paid me one year NOT to file a return on my part-time income from Friendly Ice Cream), and filling out a 1040EZ for Mom circa 2000. All those years in between, either John did our taxes, or they were done by a CPA firm in conjunction with taxes on John's small business. And that, by the way, was when we got the $10K tax bill. It wasn't until John's business was gone and I had my tax course at University of Phoenix that John quite sensibly stuck me with the family taxes, on the grounds that "You're an accountant." So you see, I'm actually far less experienced with income tax than many non-accountants my age. I need that friendly TurboTax questionnaire, even if it does let me down sometimes. I'm actually a little stuck at the moment in fact, waiting for an answer to my question about how to report the $70.83 I got on a 1099-MISC from First Magnus Liquidating Trust, recognizing the tiny fraction of my unpaid wages from First Magnus that finally came through last year.

And I'll tell you a secret: tax professionals use software, too. In that less-than-satisfactory job I held briefly a month ago, to do taxes for people inside a check cashing store, I was plunked down at a computer loaded with a pro version of an online tax software package. Nobody coming through the store had their W-2s yet, which was probably just as well. I spent the week, when I wasn't diverted from the store by their computer problems and the presence of cops, entering online sample returns into it. I have to tell you, that professional software was a lot like TurboTax. If I'd done a real return it would have been reviewed by the CPA firm for which I was temping, so I suppose that's where the value lies in using a service like that. But at my end, it was like using TurboTax, only for fictitious people, in a building with no public bathroom. Frankly, if the client is even a little competent and has a simple return, as most of the folks at a check cashing service do, he or she is better off using free tax software online at the local library and then mailing it in.

How about you? Are you a tax go-getter or a tax procrastinator? Do you fly solo, use computerized help or palm the tax preparation off on someone else? Tell us about it in your blog, with a link back to this entry, and leave a link to your entry in the comments below. I'll be back in a week to post the results. Meanwhile...

For Weekend Assignment #255: Two Centuries Later, I asked you to consider the impact of Abraham Lincoln and/or Charles Darwin on your life. A few brave souls responded:

Julie said in comments...

I'll have to give thought to this one as well...

Florinda said...

I would rank Lincoln up near the top of my list of great Presidents, if I had one, especially in the context of the times over which he presided. However, I can't say he's had much impact on me personally - my own forbears didn't even reach this country until about forty years after the Civil War was over..

Mike said...

This is pretty easy for me. See, growing up in Illinois you have no choice but be reminded about good old Abe Lincoln and how much he meant to our country. Usually this involves a filed trip to Central Illinois to see some log cabins he may have lived in at one time. Also, there is no way one can get through school without doing some kind of report on Abraham Lincoln. I don't remember when I did one, but I know I did. Heck, our slogan is "Land of Lincoln."

That's it for now. Whether or not you're ready to do your taxes (or have already done them), please participate in this Weekend Assignment this week. And yes, I'm still in desperate need of your suggestions for future Weekend Assignment topics. Email me your ideas at mavarin@aol.com anytime. If I use your topic you'll get full credit and my undying thanks. Next week we'll probably be digging through the suggestion box, so why not add to my options?

Karen

Weekend Assignment #255: Two Centuries Later

I had another topic in mind this afternoon but I can't let the 200th birthday of both Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin go by without acknowledgment. Here, therefore, is my rather wonky Weekend Assignment in tribute to both:

Weekend Assignment #255: Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin were born on the same day, two hundred years ago this week. Both went on to propound ideas that had a lasting effect on the world around us. Have either of them had a particular impact on you personally?

Extra Credit: Where do you rank Lincoln on your personal list of greatest U.S. presidents?

Obviously I'm neither a politician nor a scientist, so the influence of these two men on my life is not as great as it might be for people whose careers were inspired by the accomplishments of one or the other of them. But I've been aware of Lincoln as an historic figure since I was three or four years old, and of Darwin since, I don't know, junior high perhaps?

Lincoln first. When I was a small child in Dewitt, NY, I had a savings account at Lincoln National Bank on Genesee Street, just three blocks from our house. My parents had a little bust of Lincoln on the desk in the foyer of the house in Manlius, I think, and of course he was on all the Lincoln Head Cents I raided from my coin collection to buy Popsicles from the ice cream truck. Sometime during my childhood, I think we made a brief visit to Gettysburg; the one thing I remember is seeing the envelope on which the Gettysburg Address was written.

Upon learning about the 16th President in school, I pretty much decided that he was the greatest one, topping Washington. After all, Washington had all those other titans writing important foundational documents: Jefferson, Adams and so on. I still place Jefferson and Adams ahead of Washington in my personal favorites list, although I'm aware that historians rate Washington higher than I do.

I've been thinking about Lincoln fairly often in recent years, largely on the basis of the Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln show at Disneyland. It's not currently open as an attraction, having been replaced years ago with a film starring Steve Martin and Donald Duck. But I think a cast member told me this summer that Mr. Lincoln is still waiting backstage, in case he is ever again called upon for another animatronic performance. I hope he is, even if they have to update the electronics first. The compiled highlights of Lincoln's speeches in that show impress the heck out of me.

We now have a new President, of course, who clearly takes Lincoln's legacy seriously. You find conscious echoes of Lincoln in Barack Obama's speeches, where he chooses to make appearances, props he employs, and even in food the White House serves. It may seem a little strange at times, even a bit OTT, but he could do worse than to emulate the 16th President, and to remind us of the principles Lincoln stood for. We need them.

Lincoln is almost universally revered, but Darwin is still controversial, of course, much more so than he should be by now. 36 or 37 years ago, Mr. Petty walked into my high school bio class with a copy of his Bible and a copy of The Origin of Species, and told us that he keeps the two books next to each other on his bookcases. At the time I wondered what the big deal was. His point was that Darwin did not present a refutation of God or Christianity, but at the time I was not aware of anyone who believed otherwise.

The following year, however, during my Jesus Person phase, I attended a bible study group. The second or third week, my classmate's parents, who hosted the group, gave me a tract or book that claimed there was no such thing as evolution. Since that was clearly bunk, I never went back to that group. Similarly, I used to babysit two kids a couple doors down from my house. They were only about eight and ten years old, possibly younger, but they were thoroughly indoctrinated. The little girl had a book about volcanoes and a Noah's Ark set, and used both to test my adherence to fundamentalist doctrine. I think we ended up with an "agree to disagree" truce, but it was tricky.

Kid: Are you saved?
Me: Yes.
Kid: Are you lying?
Me: No.

I realized that this entry may draw a few readers who believe the world was created in 6 24-hour periods. If so, I don't want to argue with you. I do, however, strongly suggest that you venture outside the comfort zone of what you've been told by like-minded people, and read what the vast, vast majority of scientists say on the subject. The Bible was never meant to be a science book, and the scientific evidence for the theory of evolution is extensive and compelling. And yes, it's perfectly possible to believe in both God and Darwin.

How about you? Do you have any particular memories or philosophies inspired by either of these men? Tell us about it in your blog, with a link back to this entry, and leave a link to your entry in the comments below. I'll be back in a week to post the results. And yes, I'll link to your entry even if you disagree with me, as long as you're polite about it. Meanwhile...

For Weekend Assignment #254: Do-Over, I asked you to tell us about a day you'd like to live over again, either because it was so great or to fix what went wrong. Here are excerpts from our responses:

Laura said...

First of all, as someone who has had health issues constantly throughout my life that might finally have been resolved, I would dearly love to go back in time to the first time the health issue started and hand my child-self the medical report with my hard-fought diagnosis. Hopefully that would have lessened the trauma and wasted time, which would have had a significant impact on my life!

Florinda said...

While I can appreciate the appeal of going back to correct something in your past, I'm not sure I'd use my do-over day for that. Isn't there some time-travel rule against changing anything in the past in a way that alters the future? Most of the things that come to mind would probably do that, because they were significant days in my personal history, so I should probably leave them alone (like it or not). I can't really think of any minor missed opportunities - good but not life-altering experiences that I could have had, but didn't - that I'd want to go back and seize, so I'm going with the "enjoy a great day all over again" option.

Karen H. said in comments...

What a wonderful topic! (And a very interesting story you have there, Karen.)

Not only do I fully embrace your Groundhog Day theme, but I am proud to admit that my hubby and I have personally attending Groundhog Day in Punxsatawney, PA because we love Groundhog Day the movie so much (read: nerds) and wanted to experience it in person. Every year on Feb. 2, hubby calls me in the morning. Twice.

Julie said in comments...

Just wanted to let you know I'm still mulling this one over, Karen. So many? How do I narrow it down?

That's it for now. I may be inviting a firestorm, but please participate in this Weekend Assignment this week. And yes, I'm still in desperate need of your suggestions for future Weekend Assignment topics. Email me your ideas at mavarin@aol.com anytime. If I use your topic you'll get full credit and my undying thanks.

Karen

The Comment Manifesto

I tend to get suspicious when an older entry from the Outpost gets a new comment. Sometimes it's because someone was Googling for pages on a specific subject (I get lots of hits on my George Maharis posts, for example), but more often it's comment spam.

But this one tonight was in a class of its own. It was posted to "The Curse and Promise of Change," an entry from November 16th that has recently aged off my blog's main page.

Let's start with a copy of my posted comment in reply, slightly edited for typos, and then I'll say something new. Here we go:

I am deleting a comment that begins,

rafael said...

AUTHENTIC RECORD AND GEOLOGY SCIENTIS CAN’T CALCULATE THE AGE OF THE EARTH.
The subject of evolution among those who understand it, they must be aware that there is the danger of excessive subjectivity concerning one owns knowledge. This is not healthy, is a means of cultivating the mind with vain thoughts, and be fill with self examination. Is better, to be objective.

...and goes on for a total of 20,661 words, most of it in one paragraph. The bulk of it is an attempt to use Biblical quotes to disprove evolution. It contains misspellings, poor grammar and punctuation, logical fallacies, and pure gobbledegook. My favorite (by default because I haven't the patience to read the entire screed), is the following:

Darwinism was accepted by eugenics which was Hitler idealism or dream, never accomplished in Germany but applied in North America, where is up to now working, nevertheless the biggest lied on humanity is ending microscopic world.

Looky there! A genuine Reductio ad Hitlerum!

I would leave this misguided comment up in the interest of fairness (and so Paul et al. can laugh at it), but the fact is that it fails my comment policy. There is no indication whatsoever that the person read my entry, which was mostly about my job changes and Tuffy's cancer, and secondarily about change itself. Evolution wasn't even mentioned. I'm assuming that the person Googled the buzzword "species" and pasted in comment spam everywhere the word turned up. Sorry, rafael. Your manifesto, pasted in as a response to a posting on an entirely different subject, does not constitute intelligent discourse. Bye-bye.

Anyone who knows me, or even reads this blog on a regular basis, can probably tell that I'm not the most confrontational of people. I hate, hate, hate interpersonal conflict, and do my best to avoid it. It makes me physically ill. And I really do believe strongly in tolerance for other points of view, and not dividing the world into Us and Them, and all that other ethical stuff I sometimes rant about here.

So believe me when I say that I don't really want to belittle or make fun of this "rafael" person. That's not my idea of a good time. The deficiencies in English may be an ESL issue, and if it's not, it mostly just makes me sad to see the language mangled. Nor am I going to refute this manifesto, which when I paste it into Word comes out as 32 pages. The final paragraph is over 28 pages long, and consists entirely of interpreting Bible quotes as "proof" that Darwin was wrong. At least, that's the impression I get from glancing at a few lines here and there.

And that's kind of my point. Even if I were to leave this ridiculously long comment visible, I doubt that anyone would read it through, least of all me. It's not necessary, when it's possible to get a sense of the thing from reading bits and pieces of it. I can overlook deficiencies in punctuation (well, let's pretend I can) if the words themselves make sense. But there seems to be precious little sense to be found in this one, even beyond my gut reaction of "I disagree with you, and therefore you're wrong," which is a fallacy in itself. If I were to read it through, it would probably be to play "count the fallacies."

But let's not, and I'll tell you why. First off, this was an anonymous comment, in the sense of having no contact link for the commenter. It is unlikely that any attempt on my part to educate this person about science or critical thinking or paragraph breaks would ever reach its target. Second, even if the person were to turn up again, and I somehow overcame my aversion to confrontation, I doubt I could make a dent in the person's illogic. Third, evolution has plenty of defenders online, with far more knowledge of the subject and far better arguments than I could manage. It doesn't need me to jump in there too. Fourth, at least one of my friends has issues with the subject, and I don't want to open that can of worms. Fifth, I really do respect the right of this person to disagree with me. And sixth, it would be too darn much trouble!

What annoys me about it, though, and the reason I clicked on the trash can icon, is that this person posted 20,661 words of comment to my 1,519-word entry, not one of which related directly to what I wrote about. That's rather rude, isn't it? Here I am, going on about jobs lost and a sick dog, and trying at the end to turn it into something philosophical and uplifting. And does rafael call me by name, sympathize about Tuffy, or indicate in any way whatsoever that he's read a single word that I wrote? He does not, unless that single word is "species." And what is my grandiose claim, requiring 32 pages' worth of passionate but clumsy refutation? As far as I can tell, it was simply this:

Species die out, the Earth gets warmer, and new superviruses arise.

Y'know, I wouldn't have thought there was anything terribly controversial about that sentence. The passenger pigeons unquestionably existed, and don't anymore. Icebergs are melting, and polar bears are having a difficult time as a result. And hospitals find themselves battling highly drug-resistant viruses that weren't around a decade ago. One can debate about dinosaurs, or whether humans have an effect on global warming, or why and how viruses seem to get more virulent over time. But the facts stated in my little sentence are pretty hard to refute at this point, short of some elaborate twisting of both facts and logic. Notice that I didn't say why or how any of that stuff happens. I never used the word evolution. I was merely listing three examples of change, which was after all the subject of the essay.

Still, I doubt rafael even knows this, or cares. And that, more than anything else, is why I deleted the comment.

Karen