BOY MY MIND IS FRIED THIS TAX SEASON - WHAT WILL HIT NEXT?

 Okay, as I just added to last week's post which apparently – though I remember posting it – was never posted and has been sitting as draft.  

For some reason I seem to be getting hit a lot lately with crazy things.  As I have mentioned I am an accountant and it is, of course, “tax season”.  As the daughter of two accountants I grew up with tax season so I am accustomed to dealing with same.  I was helping my father making photocopies when same was relatively new in the 1960s – to give an idea of what I mean – First the original and the paper to be copied were run through a slot in the copier where the original was copied onto the paper.  Then the 2 papers came out of the machine.  The copy (and, yes, sometimes we ran the original through by mistake and that was a mess) was then inserted into a different slot in the copier where it was run through the chemicals to make the printing appear on it and fix same to it.  The copies came out wet and had to be hung up to dry – and it all smelled terrible.

I am down to a handful of clients who I prepare individual tax returns for and even less business clients (and two of those are my husband).  The clients I have are mostly my dad's clients, (dad having passed on some decades ago) some started with him in the 1960s or 1970s. The returns are fairly straight forward as they are all retired long ago – nothing to tease my brain.  So while preparing the tax returns takes time and I have to make sure that I have all the info from each client, it is not a brain busting matter to prepare the returns (add instructions, etc.)  

I belong to an embroidery chapter of a national embroidery club.  I serve as Treasurer of same.  The renewals for this organization are due by the end of May, so every year renewals overlap tax season – but I am used to this by now.

So far, so good.

I am also the Treasurer of our reenactment unit. This is not normally any sort of problem or situation during the main part of tax season as dues to our national organization from members,, as well as the dues to our unit, are collected in January and February and the dues to the national organization must be mailed by me to them by March 1.  This year, however, the national organization decided as long as things were quiet due to the pandemic – it was the time to redo their membership records and how they are managed on their end.  As a result they pushed back renewals into later in the year – yes, they are also due the end of May.  But to make things a bit easier, since our unit basically did nothing, the board voted to roll over paid dues from 2020 into 2021.  So only those members who did not renew with unit in 2020 have to renew now with the unit and only those members of the unit who belong to our national organization (and we do not require members to belong, so only about half of our members do) have to renew now.  

I have been working on tax returns – have all done except one friend who always files late (years late) and one client who always asks for an extension – and our return, of course, though our return is actually almost finished – I need the mileage on our car odometer to calculate business use of the car last year and we will get our car back on Friday.  

Forgot to throw that in – our car has been at our mechanic for over 2 months.  He actually gave up early week and husband went looking online and found the same odd problem we have and what people did – so the mechanic was finally able to fix it – but two months ago I did not think to take the mileage off the odometer and will not have it until we get the car back this Friday.  

I went to file extensions for the client who needs them while I was still waiting for information from the other clients last week.  I found out that the tax software I am using has a problem with our state and the forms are not fileable (my practice is too small for me to be able file for clients online).  So, I have had to take the copy of the return as I get it from the software and then fill in the state forms by hand to be able to use them.  This did not happen with a return I had to prepare for a different state so it is related to this state's returns not a general problem.  This was not a big deal, but it did take more time.  

I had to send a couple of weeks ago emails to both organizations for renewals and I am currently waiting for the renewals to trickle in from both groups.  

It doesn't matter how much I have systems for getting things done on time when things go awry elsewhere.  Plus of course – Easter and Passover dinners for husband and myself, as well as husband's birthday.  This is one heck of a spring for me, and I have to work hard to juggle it all this year.  

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -

Chances are that whatever one's plans are and how well they are organized something will go wrong.  Hopefully nothing goes wrong in a major way that cannot be adjusted for.  The comedienne Gilda Radner used to say on “Saturday Night Live” - “It's always something.”  

Oh, did I mention that our shower drain is backed up and we cannot use it until we clear the pipes, we still have to figure out what to do about the poison ivy in the backyard that we ignored last year and it grew all the way from the back of the house to the front – including onto the house, and we could not mow the backyard due to same and still have weeds the size of trees back there...