My apologies - this post was written for and I thought I posted it on September 16. While posting my September 23 post, I found this was still marked as draft -
I am working on paperwork for a real estate credit that husband and I are entitled since we are over 65 and have an income on the low side. This paperwork has to be filled in and filed annually. Last year's filing ran something like 125 pages. This is due to change they made last year. We have to provide proof of all our business income and expenses. The paperwork was crazy before this requirement, but with it….
At least this year I knew these extra records would be needed, so before I put away our financial records from 2019 I pulled out and scanned the needed paperwork into the computer – or at least I thought I did all of it. I even made sure that the expenses for our two extremely small businesses added up to the tax return numbers which came from my computer software.
The form to fill in and mail (or drop off) with the papers needed came and I started, slowly putting it all together. I have combined various sections of what is needed with cover pages for each in my computer as pdf files. It should not be hard, I had already scanned in the papers – right?
General proof of income – 1099s and such, no problem. Medical expenses (we can subtract this from our income in the calculation) I had most of them ready – we have to have printouts, they do not accept paid bills or copies of checks that paid them as proof. I had contacted and have this printouts from our medical insurance companies which is most of the expense. In normal years we go into our pharmacy and they hand us printouts and we also bought eyeglasses last year and had planned to do same with the optician. But this is not a normal year. The optician is mailing the copies of our records, I still have to telephone our pharmacy about same.
I had moved on to putting together the information from our businesses. I thought I had it all – I had scanned them into the computer and just needed to finish assembling them. But, neither business' receipts match the computer records of what they should be. They are small amounts, but this process is so crazy – they may disallow the $1.90 here or the $20 there. Hopefully if they do it will not affect the exemption amount by much.
Imagine having to put together all the expenses just from your car and having to make copies of all of them. In this case I have to also give a breakdown of how much is from miles driven for husband's business and how many much for miles driven for mine and apportion the cost of each expense (which was already done for our income taxes). How many small credit card receipts for gas do you end up with in a year?
While the cut off date to file this form and supporting paperwork is January 2, 2021, I don't like to wait until the last minute to deal with it. Last year when we needed to go and bring in the paperwork to the county offices was when husband needed to get teeth added to his upper denture (also includeable as a medical expense for IRS and for this) and we ended up having the impression of his teeth taken and then driving to the county office – where he would have had to wait in the car anyway (no place to park), but in this case did not want to go in within without his teeth also. So, since we are stuck in the house due to the corona virus pandemic anyway, I have been working on putting all this together and filing in the forms since August.
We were discussing how we file the paperwork. We used to mail to the county by certified mail. In 2018 we mailed in the 2017 information for the 2019 taxes (yes, it is terribly confusing) by mail as usual. Then we received a month or so later a robo phone call from the county executive that we had not filed the papers! I tried calling the office - but the answering machine basically said “we are too busy to talk to you, don't bother us” When I called again later in the day added to that message was “and don't try to come in here as there is no parking”. This last part being true and has been decades, which was why husband dropped me off and waited in the car. In a panic we reprinted and assembled everything to bring it to them. In the interim a story on the news was that they were suppose to send the call to a few people who had filed in the past and had not yet filed, but they sent to every property owner in the county. Unsure of if we were in the group whose paperwork had not been received, we drove to the office and I waited in their waiting room. Luckily by the time we went there a couple of days after the call – the lines were no longer 5 hours long as they were the day after the mistaken calls. They did have our paperwork.
Last year we decided we go there (as we did) and turn in the paperwork in person and receive a receipt from them for it and did so. We planned to continue to do so. But we are now trying to decide since we are not going out due to Covid 19 – do we venture into the post office (that we don't go to, even overnight) to pick up our mail or do we go to the county office where I will wait my turn for what might be hours – but we will know for sure that they have our paperwork? (Yes, the difference in what we pay in property taxes, especially the school taxes, with and without the exemption is enough to make it worthwhile.)
Hopefully I will soon be done with the paperwork and we can decide which we will do and when. I am guessing the early in the season for this, the fewer people who will be waiting, so I will try to finish as quickly as I can. I did send an email to the head of the department and asked if they will have drive-up windows for this as they did for people to come in and pay the property taxes. I don't figure they will or even that I will get an answer.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Use the time you are stuck in the house to get work done. I have been catching up all sorts of paperwork and household chores that I have put off, well, for years since I am home. Our shower soon might be even clean enough to actually not worry about getting dirtier when one takes one. :-)
My thoughts and prayers both to those in the United States west where there are terrible fires and those in the southeast who have been going through yet another major hurricane this week.
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