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I was supposed to go walking with my friend D., however, her daughter was not feeling well so that did not happen. I was then supposed to have my Dutch lesson, but my instructor is still digging out from under a huge project, so that did not happen. I watched Castle, then went for a walk with M. And then I was forced to accept that I really could not avoid taxes any longer.
So I went upstairs and started downloading crap into TurboTax. One of the accounts is on its third credentialing system in as many years, IIRC. They want "document IDs" and they involve a long string of letters and numbers (had to go log into that accounts website, find the PDF version of the tax forms and pull the document IDs off it). Unfortunately, I couldn't copy and paste the document ID. Well, I could copy it, but not paste it into TurboTax. And the zeros and letter O's were difficult to tell apart. After several fails, I resorted to copying the ID onto a sticky, where the default font made telling the two apart very easy. Voila.
I also had to confront the unwieldy mass of papers stacked up waiting to be massaged into a tax return. Usually, in October, the supporting documents get filed with a copy of the return, but for whatever reason, that didn't happen last year, and the resulting piles included intermingled documents for tax years 2013 (no, I don't know why either), 2014, 2015 and even a few for 2016 (I've taken to paying property tax early, ever since that year I completely forgot to pay, and didn't notice until I went to claim the deduction. Ooops).
Once the documents were separated out into appropriate files and/or stacks, I became demoralized, realized it was 12:30, and took myself down the street (in the car, no less, which I justified by bringing some items for the Middle Class Guilt Reduction Station that didn't quite make it on the Savers run last weekend) for a burger, fries and desultory conversation with other people at the bar and, of course, the ever lovely and entertaining B. Around 2, I forced myself away from the group (because more coffee was only going to make me jittery), and returned to the taxes, which at this point started going deceptively smoothly. In went charitable donations and excise and the pile moved from one side to the other, until I was down to one conspicuously missing document. I looked _everywhere_. It was _nowhere_. And honestly, I couldn't remember seeing it show up.
Kids arrived home and T. said he wanted a short day with the sitter and to have dinner out with us. I hadn't realized I was going to have a second sitter until after I'd already had lunch out, so, oops, two meals out in one day. Oh well. We went to Papa Razzi for dinner. I got an email back about the missing document. I had not lost it -- it hadn't gone out yet (today is 5 April!). "Any day now!" Yeah, sure. It's gonna be an estimated anyway, so like I even care.
So the last of it was printing extensions and writing checks and entering stuff on the Mass DOR site. Also, the bizarre realization that I've now run through this enough times that what once took me days, if not a week or more of start, get stuck, wait for R., continue, get stuck again, wait for R., etc. has turned into a single day of concerted effort. (Of course, he still has to do his part: installing and updating the software and entering all his information.) I got so much done around the house, avoiding doing the taxes, and now that need to procrastinate has been All Used Up for the next six months.
Oh well.
So I went upstairs and started downloading crap into TurboTax. One of the accounts is on its third credentialing system in as many years, IIRC. They want "document IDs" and they involve a long string of letters and numbers (had to go log into that accounts website, find the PDF version of the tax forms and pull the document IDs off it). Unfortunately, I couldn't copy and paste the document ID. Well, I could copy it, but not paste it into TurboTax. And the zeros and letter O's were difficult to tell apart. After several fails, I resorted to copying the ID onto a sticky, where the default font made telling the two apart very easy. Voila.
I also had to confront the unwieldy mass of papers stacked up waiting to be massaged into a tax return. Usually, in October, the supporting documents get filed with a copy of the return, but for whatever reason, that didn't happen last year, and the resulting piles included intermingled documents for tax years 2013 (no, I don't know why either), 2014, 2015 and even a few for 2016 (I've taken to paying property tax early, ever since that year I completely forgot to pay, and didn't notice until I went to claim the deduction. Ooops).
Once the documents were separated out into appropriate files and/or stacks, I became demoralized, realized it was 12:30, and took myself down the street (in the car, no less, which I justified by bringing some items for the Middle Class Guilt Reduction Station that didn't quite make it on the Savers run last weekend) for a burger, fries and desultory conversation with other people at the bar and, of course, the ever lovely and entertaining B. Around 2, I forced myself away from the group (because more coffee was only going to make me jittery), and returned to the taxes, which at this point started going deceptively smoothly. In went charitable donations and excise and the pile moved from one side to the other, until I was down to one conspicuously missing document. I looked _everywhere_. It was _nowhere_. And honestly, I couldn't remember seeing it show up.
Kids arrived home and T. said he wanted a short day with the sitter and to have dinner out with us. I hadn't realized I was going to have a second sitter until after I'd already had lunch out, so, oops, two meals out in one day. Oh well. We went to Papa Razzi for dinner. I got an email back about the missing document. I had not lost it -- it hadn't gone out yet (today is 5 April!). "Any day now!" Yeah, sure. It's gonna be an estimated anyway, so like I even care.
So the last of it was printing extensions and writing checks and entering stuff on the Mass DOR site. Also, the bizarre realization that I've now run through this enough times that what once took me days, if not a week or more of start, get stuck, wait for R., continue, get stuck again, wait for R., etc. has turned into a single day of concerted effort. (Of course, he still has to do his part: installing and updating the software and entering all his information.) I got so much done around the house, avoiding doing the taxes, and now that need to procrastinate has been All Used Up for the next six months.
Oh well.