Tax Liberty Day

You know that day, which keeps getting later every year, when you finish paying your taxes and begin earning for yourself? I think it's currently in mid-May. That is not what this is about.

The IRS allows, without fuss, an extension to file the annual return, an extra six months past the notorious April 15 date. I took the extension in 2006, finished up our return in a mad crush as October 15 approached, filed and paid what we owed, and swore to myself I wouldn't do THAT again.

Oops, I did it again.

Sunday was another mad crush, organizing receipts (for 2006; I still need to catch up on 2007, and there's some leftover 2005 stuff as well, nothing important, obviously), figuring out how much we had forked over in sales taxes (since Texas residents can deduct it; we don't have a state income tax), working out how badly stock sales would hit us (not bad at all really), and finally waltzing it all through TaxCut and e-filing. And, heck, I had over 11 hours to spare! Plus a nice refund coming.

It felt like Frodo delivering the Ring into the fire, with the upside that I didn't have to have a finger bitten off.

So this time, in public (inasmuch as anyone reads this sketchy blog), I hereby promise myself that my 2007 return, next year, will not take so long to file. Next year I will be diligent. And praise be unto the people who produce TaxCut.

When filing, did you take the long distance phone tax refund? The standard value maxes out at $60.00, but if you can provide receipts you can claim the actual value. I'm enough of a nerd that, yep, I have all the phone bills for the last N years, though only back to early 2003 are meaningful for this purpose. I wrung out all the actual tax paid, dollars and cents, and it worked out to $76 and change, so a small win for the home team. Well, it got better -- the IRS only deals in whole-dollar amounts, so everything got rounded up -- a small gain there -- and the kicker, there was a few dollars of interest included! Final score, $92. Man, tax accounting is weird.