CATCHING UP

Well tax season is behind me now and I am trying to catch up on everything which fell by the wayside. 

It amazes me that when I was working full time in the first 4 months of the year I would do payroll taxes for 10 business clients twice each - January & April - and the January ones involved typing W2s for all the employees of the clients, corporation or partnership returns for the businesses, year end sales tax for most of them (NY has a sales tax year which ends the end of February and is due in March), and personal returns for about 40 clients while also keeping house, dealing with Easter and Passover, a trip out of state for my husband’s birthday, and towards the end of April - a trip to Maryland for a reenactment event, plus dealing with my embroidery chapter and reenactment unit’s treasuries and renewal of membership for the reenactment unit.  It exhausts me to just list all of this.

These days I have about 6 tax returns, two corporations and a partnership (and only one of the businesses is not ours), three sales tax returns, payroll taxes for one company which has one employee, little to do for the holidays or husband’s birthday, and no trip to Maryland (too cold for RV to be dewinterized).  Still dealing with the two treasuries and the renewals for the reenactment unit.  Yet, I still have trouble finishing it all up timely.  It is true that work expands to the time allotted to do it.  Maybe this thought comes to mind just because I am watching the series on TV about Einstein and that brings to mind his relativity theory.

Think about it - you look around.  The house needs decluttering and cleaning.  If you have guests coming over on Friday - you are going to do what you do before Friday, if they are not coming until the first of next month - the same work will take you until then - right?  We used to have a room where no one could go when we had people in also.  When I was a girl it was my bedroom closet.  Mom would tell me periodically (I am guessing when people were going to be coming or she just could not look at it any more) to clean my room.  I would do as much as I could - then what was left would be tossed into the bottom of my closet.  (Sound familiar?)  Once or twice a year I would even be told to clear out the bottom of my closet - generally I would find items such as the bag with most of my Trick or Treat candy in it around May or June - that was a toss out as mom told us we would get sick if eat anything that old.  One problem was that no one ever actually explained to me the concept of throwing things out or passing them along, to me cleaning was put everything out of site.  I have since learned better. 

So now I am dealing with the catchup.  The stack on my desk - on top of my “todo folder”, which means that these items must be done before I can start on what I have to do - is shrinking. 

I spent an afternoon dealing with items waiting for me from our reenactment unit.  In addition to being treasurer I am also the membership chair as it is easier for one person to do so.  Dues are long ago collected, the dues collected for our national went out on time back in March. Membership cards had been typed up (yes, typed on a typewriter) and given to the unit commander to mail to members.  I had managed to get to the bank and deposit the dues check - and one for an event the unit did in January.  But, some members have been waiting to be paid for money laid out and I had to pay them.  One of our unit insurance policies had come in and I paid it.  I had the forms that members had filled in which had to be scanned into the computer so I could shred and toss the originals.  I had to make up the membership list for the year.  I worked on all this - all done except it took until today to get a clarification from one member as to whether the new phone number she gave me was her home or cell number that had changed.  I heard from her today - the new list will be out to the commander to email out by this weekend - I hope.

I managed to keep up on paying the bills for my embroidery chapter - most were to third parties, and were paid right away.  A couple of checks to members for, again, money laid out just were written.  Our national embroidery group has a membership year that runs from June through the following May (yeah, it confuses the heck out of me why that is the year for membership dues - the financial year is a calendar year, and somehow in the change from quarterly renewals based on when members had joined to an annual one - we paid for the month of June twice one year) and while I am not the membership chair, I help her as the treasurer.   I do serve as the newsletter editor and today wrote the May newsletter for the chapter, which is also the meeting notice for our upcoming meeting.  This one was a bit harder than most.  Last week chapter president had emailed her message for the month which included talking about the program for the meeting - which was not exactly what I remembered and had on our website as the meeting program.  I had a hands on project - she had a “fashion show” of what I had us doing - she had in mind the idea that we had sort of worked on this all year and members should show what they have done on the project.  I doubled checked with her and yes, that was the meeting program.  Yesterday I got an email from the VP of the chapter and she had the info to do the project I thought we were doing - and she was the leader of the project.  I also had an email from the chapter president saying a sort of “whoops - I guess I thought about it differently” and that I should go ahead with the project as the meeting and maybe include bring in items started.  I had to combine both ideas.  The president had told me to dump her message, but I managed to work it into a version of what she wanted for the meeting as a side to the hands on project.  Plus I had a lot of related exhibitions to list, so what should have taken half an hour to put together - 2 hours!  Then after it was emailed out (and I email out one version to our members and some region people and the same with a “you asked for this, let me know if you don’t want it” message to people who have asked for info about our chapter) I realized that I had forgotten something urgent.  Yes, I forgot to tell the members that it is renewal time.  So I sent out a separate addendum to the only the members. 

That leaves bank statements to reconcile, a month’s worth of filing for our reenactment unit papers (I managed to do the month’s worth of personal, business, and embroidery chapter filing over last weekend), and an assortment of other items to do - including scanning in our personal tax return and papers and printing a copy of same for my records.  (Right now there is a stack - you know about stacks right? - of the tax papers in front of the office closet waiting for me.)  If I had one day to sit and work....  Tomorrow I have to go to Manhattan to my remaining business client (other than our businesses) and do the books and payroll taxes. 

I also need to pull out the 2007 box of old records.  I will shred almost all of what is in the box.  I scan the credit card and other bills to see if there is anything I need to hold onto.  With the credit cards I will scan each for amounts over $100 to see what they are.  Sometimes there may be a reason to keep a larger receipt - generally not and they will be shredded also. I will also pull out any checks, W2, or 1099 forms which paid income taxes (for the business if it paid corporation taxes, sales taxes, or annual filing fee) and keep them.  I always do that.  It is good to always keep proof that taxes were paid. 

I will then refill the box with the matching paperwork from 2016, change the label on the box to 2016 and put it back in the top of the office closet.  To make this easier I have different color labels on file folders in my files for permanent (leave everything in this folder in it) and annual (check this folder every year to see if anything should stay in it - or be put in the annual box).  I use red or yellow for annual and blue or green for permanent - red and blue are used for our personal files and for my embroidery chapter files, yellow and green for our corporation files and our reenactment unit files.  I also have a folder with items which need to be added to the 2015 box.  Then I will be able to open the office closet door again without having to move stacks of paper. :-)
                                   
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -

Take a deep breath and start doing a bit of  “spring cleaning”.  If nothing else switch whatever you need to from winter to spring.  If you put away winter clothes - see what you will not want next year and either donate it now or put it in a labeled box for the fall to donate then, if where you donate will only take seasonal items.  This way you can donate it without having to look at it again then.

Remember that time is relative, but one can only do so much.

And - if you live near where Carvel is located and you read this post early enough - Thursday, April 27 is free cone day this year.