The meeting with our tax accountant is tomorrow. I sorted, listed, and double checked the year’s receipts and check amounts in one torturous yesterday. I have a decorative bag in which I put each possible deduction receipt and note until the next year’s tax time.
Other people I know prepare every month by using the computer to input the information. By the end of the year, it’s easy to take the organized categories’ totals, add their twelve monthly entries, record them in the tax form. and submit. Taxes done, pat on the back, and laugh at the one-dayers who, like me, are up until 1 or 2:00 a.m. to finish.
Two different systems that usually are habitual from year to year. My husband, the laugher, and I, the one-dayer, discussed the values and downsides of both methods with two friends of ours. Mitchell predicted that I was the only one (probably in the world) who doesn’t do the monthly recording. The female agreed with him. Monthly attention to taxes is the only way to work it. The male, a colleague of Mitchell’s, shook his head and said he has a bag too and throws the receipts etc. into it, and then does a one day marathon. Mitchell looked surprised. I laughed.
Which method do you use for your taxes? Or do you have a a better way than either of the two?
Which one would your protagonist use?
Julaina Kleist-Corwin
Editor of Written Across the Genres
Author of Hada’s Fog
I’ve always aspired to a method that a friend of mine, who owns a small meat market, uses. He puts all of his tax-related receipts, etc. into the bottom center drawer near the one chair in the market. At tax time, his accountant comes in and asks him where all of his records are. He leans down, pulls out the drawer, and hands it to her. Now I ask you, what could be simpler?
Good for you, Tanda.
I have a plastic expandable file folder. Almost everything goes in there. I also keep a file on the computer (not a spreadsheet) for pdf receipts. Unfortunately, I made a second file a few years ago so now I have to look in both because I haven’t made the time to consolidate where I put tax information. Some day, I’ll have one computer file and one physical file that will magically keep themselves tidy. Look for pigs flying on that day.