Death and Taxes

As Benjamin Franklin famously said




“In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”

Taxes seem to be a yearly dread for me because 1) I am the one doing them or 2) If I decide to put them on my Hubby's plate (since I already pay and keep up with all our bills), I will have to then worry about them until they are done. And he will usually wait until the very last minute- literally running to the post office on April 15th. He is and will always be a procrastinator and I can't change that and I love him just the same. I don't normally mind doing our taxes, though the few years we had them done for free on base was very nice and looks better each year (man I miss living near a base =..(. It's just we frequently have irregular circumstances- for me I've had partial residencies in two different states- twice so far, unemployment income which was taxed on some of it and some tax exempt, miscellaneous income, and so it seems there's just always something new. Then of course there are always new tax deductions and credits which requires further research and reading...

For instance, the past two years we've received a VT Landlord's Certificate Form LC-142 in which I looked it over and had no clue what it was. Last year, Matthew was in charge of taxes so nothing happened to it, which didn't harm us really only our pockets. After some reading on the form it looks like if you are a Vermont resident who resides in your rental for 12 months and have a income below a certain amount that you can get a portion of your rent back. Sounded pretty nice to me. Then the process continues by first trying to find two other forms online (Vermont is not so popular on Google so you have to try and try), reading those forms, filling them out, asking questions to an IRS agent online, and voilà it is finally finished. All in all, this headache of research and reading I suppose is worth the almost $600 we are getting back, well... fingers crossed.



So, dear taxes, just wanted to let you know I will be putting up a good fight each and every year, and I’ll become better and stronger. you just wait for next year. I'm sure you'll throw me some punches- new tax laws, new credits, new deductions, but watch out I've been kicking my butt in high gear at zumba so I'll be dancing circles around you! Oh and to the other certainty in life... I hope I don't see you for a very long time- I've got some more living to do and I've got to make it count!