Seeing as tax season is almost upon us, I decided I should sit down and attempt to do my taxes this weekend. I figured I'd need 3, 4 hours or so, since taxes are supposed to be hugely onerous and time consuming, right? I mean, why else would we all hate them so much? (Oh, yeah, other than that whole money-that-I-don't-get-to-keep thing. But besides that, I mean, what's to hate?)
So, I got everything ready, sat down...
...and about 40 minutes later, I was done. Maybe not even 40 minutes. I wasn't keeping good track, but I know it wasn't more than an hour. And my first thought was, "Done!" Followed by, "Wait. That was waaaaaaaay too easy. That can't be right." At which point, I decided not to go on to my state taxes, because what's the point of getting them all wrong too?
Thing is, I'm pretty sure I didn't miss anything. I don't bother with itemizing or anything like that. I prefer to keep things simple, and I'm willing to let the government keep a few more dollars of my money to spare myself a headache. It's not money I had, so how bad can I miss it?
I also tend to work on the premise that maybe if I don't try to drag every penny out of the government that I can (thus avoiding that fun tug-o-war), then they will leave me alone. I don't make a stink for you, you don't make a stink for me. Fair's fair, right? Theoretically, it should work. But only if they got the memo.
Of course at this point, I can add an extra hour or two to my tax preparation time for the general unease I've felt, and then add the time I'll spend checking it again--say 30 minutes or so, and I'm up to what, 3, 4 hours? Which is about right. And then I have my state taxes, so yeah. The onerous part, not so much, but I'm definitely set for time consuming. Ish.
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