Normally the last few days would have been busy ones for me as I am an accountant. I would be finishing up the tax returns for my husband and myself and our business – they are always done after I finish the returns for clients. I would be preparing and mailing out extensions for those clients who did not manage to get their information together in time. And I would be looking forward to some quiet time to catch up on what has been thrown aside due to lack of time.
This year is so different. I am down in general to less than 10 clients, but even so this year, well, I have barely done any returns. Clients have contacted me that they can not wrap their minds about putting the information together, not going out so they cannot mail me the info, etc. I tell them that it is not a problem – quite frankly we are not going out either and their completed returns would be a problem to mail to them -we can only put letter sized envelopes in our house mail box for pickup by the same postal employee who delivers to us, as when I tried to put larger envelopes in the clip – they fell inside the mailbox when I closed the front door of it (which they were clipped to). So I have two 6inch by 9 inch envelopes sitting in the house until we feel safe enough to go to a mail collection box and send them out.
I have a dear friend who is also a client and had not filed her 2016 return (her husband was ill and they had also moved) and that was a priority for me to get finished and out. I knew she would be getting a refund and if returns are not filed within 3 years of their due date one loses their refund and I did not want that to happen to her. I kept reminding her by email and telephone – but suddenly it was this past Saturday and I still not have her information – too late to mail the return to her even in the best of the times as she lives out of state (which is where she moved). My husband caught her on Facebook Saturday night and reminded her. I received her information on Sunday and did her return and emailed it back to her with specific instructions – in my panic and excitement to get the returns to her – I sent the wrong version of her Federal return – it was blank! She telephoned me and the correct one was emailed to her on Monday. Another client had her info to me earlier in March and her state was not extending the time for her to pay her taxes, so I finished it and mailed it to her back then.
I managed to fix some errors in our corporation's last year return, when I was going through the “do everything wrong and redo it no matter how I tried” period. It is ready to go out when we go out to mail larger items again. I am now doing this year's return for same. Next I will start ours. All will sit and wait for us to go out again.
We actually had a problem with the mail which goes to our PO Box – most of our mail does as we have problems with mail delivery at our house. We had put in to have it forwarded to us as March 31. Nothing has arrived which has been forwarded. I called the Post Office on Monday and was told that since our box is in our business's name only mail from same has been forwarded as there is no way to say to forward all from a business box. Husband started crying – the employee heard him and said she would put what she has in an envelope and mail it to us – it came the next day. She said we could call again in a couple of weeks and make arrangements to pay the postage and have same done again. What does confuse me is two things. If a company moves should not all the mail addressed to the employees of the company, even if the company is not listed in the address be forwarded also? And on the USPS website it says that if a business puts in a forward all will be forwarded to the business and the business is responsible for getting it to those who receive mail through them – doesn't that mean it should all be forwarded to us? Well, we got the large, full envelope and I will get to take them out of the sealed plastic bag that I put them in, this Friday as we cannot wait a full week for 2 week old mail to be opened. The community where our mail goes (just north of where we live) had over 4 times the number of virus cases as does our community so it really scares husband to go to the Post Office, even late night on Sunday nights as we had been going. When life is normal again we will find out how to change the box from our business name to our names so next time we can specify “all for address” if God forbid we ever have to do this again.
We also had to deal with a bad storm this week – heavy rain and huge winds. Not as bad as those of you who got hit tornadoes, and we were lucky and only lost our electricity for a few seconds. Husband was terrified, as he always is, of losing our electricity, as to do so would result in the loss of much of our food. I moved everything from the kitchen refrigerator's freezer to our spare small freezer in the basement and turned that one to the coldest it goes and added some frozen plastic “ice” also. Our logic was the larger the amount of frozen items in a confined space, the better the cold would keep if we lost electricity. I also found out that we still have some Thanksgiving leftovers – more food, which we did not remember we had, a dinner for one of us.
How are all of you faring in lock down – or are a some of you in areas which have not been hit enough to have stay home? I would love to hear from any or all of you – and I am sure that others would like to hear how people are getting by and coping.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
We are another week along and closer to being able to go out again. In our state and our local area they say we are now at the point where the number of new cases and hospital admissions are both going down – more people are now leaving the hospitals than being admitted. My original guess when the area was hit was mid to late May before we could go out. I hope I guessed right.
My best wishes for you and yours to remain healthy – or to safely return to good health.
No comments:
Post a Comment