Nothing is certain but death and taxes.
\nThis week, I’ve been gathering information for my 2004 taxes. My CPA has sent me a planner with a list of questions to answer. Now it’s my job to pull together the information from various sources.
\nI have a storage box under my desk. When I have a receipt, a paid bill or a deposit slip from the bank, I toss it into the box. In a good year, I might sift through the box once or twice, organizing the contents. And there are times when I ignore it for the entire year, and go through it in time for taxes. The documents for our taxes have come in earlier than usual, so it’s time to get busy and go through the box.
\nI sat on the floor with the box on Wednesday night and did my first shuffle. The papers were divided into several stacks: banking, paid bills, insurance, services, major purchases, mementos, and trash. Today, I worked on organizing some of the stacks. Once I’ve culled information for taxes from the stacks of papers, I’ll pull things from the Quicken program on the computer. Doctors, medicine, charitable giving, dues…all sorts of things will show up there.
\nIt’s amazing what we learn from this activity. I have to do a little research, but I’ll be able to figure out whether Dear Husband spends more to sail, or I spend more to quilt. (Want to take any bets??) I’ll be able to determine how much of our net is spent on books or magazines, and what portion of our income goes to food, housing, vehicles or clothing.
\nI suspect that our household spends less on clothing, and more on food than the average household. I’m sure we spend more on books and magazines, but oddly, less on music and DVDs. I wonder if tax time encourages people to look into their budgets and make adjustments for the coming year? I’m sure I plan to cut back on chocolate purchases this year.
\nI hope you are all farther along than I am. I think I’m going to be at this for a while.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Nothing is certain but death and taxes. This week, I’ve been gathering information for my 2004 taxes. My CPA has sent me a planner with a list of questions to answer. Now it’s my job to pull together the information … Continue reading