Saturday, March 13, 2010

Are You In With The In Crowd?

This past week I felt like I was definitely in with the in crowd. That's because I heard tons of commercials for Turbo Tax and H and R Block. Guess what I was doing?

Okay, if you've read my blogs before, you already know the answer. I was getting my tax papers organized. That's not an easy thing for me, since my methods are not recommended. I used to be able to balance my checkbooks, but have given up on that idea. I do type out my registers in Excel, so they're easier to subtract and read.

I use more than one charge card for author and publishing expenses, mainly because I can't resist getting those Amazon credits. I also have a business card which I use when going to dinner meetings, plus an older charge card which has automatically deducted my web hosting and provider fees for years. (That's right, you may be surprised to know I do have a website at http://www.morganmandel.com/ . It's got lots of stuff on it, but is not updated as often as my blogs)

I'm veering off course on ths subject. Anyway, I did it! I've got all my income tax stuff ready in the nick of time. We're heading off to the accountant this afternoon. I'm thankful I only go through this once a year.

For those who can use Turbo Tax, I salute you. I'm afraid I'm too far gone now into using an accountant. I don't know half of what she does with depreciation and other mysterious concepts.

Anyway, I did better than last year. Last year I had to skip my Step Class so I could finish organizing it all.. Today, I was fortunate enough to go to my class and suffer through another grueling session of trying to get fit. Aren't I lucky!

What about you? Are you in with the in crowd? Are you doing your taxes, or have you finished them?

5 comments:

  1. I've thought about them. Does that count? I do them myself. I'm in no hurry to start, as I fear I'll have to shell out more to Uncle Sam.

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  2. I used to have them religiously done the first week in February. Now I'm still a month early, but it seems late to me. But yes, they are done, amid much head pounding and an aching back. Congrats on getting yours done!

    Liana Laverentz
    www.lianalaverentz.com

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  3. Ugh! My husband had us do ours between Christmas and New Years so that he would know how much to invest in something or another. I'm quasi-organized about my writing expenses, and our previous accountants trained me to sort things by category. Due to tight finances, we do our own finances, and even scary things like depreciation aren't so hard to figure out. With these programs, like Turbo Tax, its basically a fill in the blank exercise. That form you fill out for your accountant? Its basically the info you plug into the tax software. All the accountant is doing is data entry- that is, once your income picture looks similar each year, you might think of coming over to the dark side - to join those of us who do our own taxes, LOL!

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  4. Morgan, ah, those dreaded taxes! We've been going to the taxman. We found a guy who is reasonable and very ethical and we like working with him. He's retired LAPD and since we both are with LAPD he's up on the deductions we can take. Organizing the papers to take the taxman - a challenge. haha.

    We're getting some back from the Feds which is nice, but the state of California is so in debt, it's unreal. They've taxed us to death and surprisingly, we still owe. Brent's registration was $497 for our 2008 Ford F150 truck and we could only claim $197.

    But I digress. The taxes are done and it's a good feeling to have it under foot.

    Smiles
    Steph

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  5. Kudos to you Morgan! We use TurboTax over here, but we haven't filed yet! It's like this every year....

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