Emotionally Taxing

This past week has been, shall we say, emotionally draining. You see, I have made a variety of mistakes which have created high blood pressure, hypertension, and a general desire on my wife's part to beat me about the head and shoulders with something heavy and blunt. I'll relate one such story below, but there have been other things in the past few weeks -- adoption paperwork snafus, new tires on the car which caused it to do donuts in the driveway without driver intervention, and any number of failed home improvement projects over the past few weeks. I've learned from my mistakes, but it's probably best to document these situations in a public forum for future reference.

The first moment when it became clear that she was in for a roller coaster ride was last weekend at approximately 7:30am. We were already somewhat tense with each other over a "discussion" from the previous evening. Nothing big, but we both awakened a little grouchy. I got up before Erin and made the first poor decision. We had received Erin's W-2, but mine had not yet arrived. Erin had been discussing what she might do with the refund we would receive on our taxes (paint the baby's room, buy some new clothes, etc), but in the back of my mind I couldn't help but wonder if we had really withheld enough throughout the year. I mentioned this to her a few times, but her unwaivering faith in my ability to put a zero in the right box on our withholding paperwork assuaged any fears she might have had. I decided to go ahead and do a quick and dirty trial run of our taxes, just to see if things were going to shape up ok in the end. I figured it wouldn't be hard, since I'm a die-hard Quicken fan. I figured Quicken could spew out my earnings for the year, as well as how much had already been withheld, I'd slap that into TurboTax, and I would have a reasonable estimate of our taxes. So off I went. I used last year's taxes as a guide for our deductions, put in Erin's W-2, imported my wage info from Quicken, and voila! "You owe $3800, Mr. Hawkins! Might we suggest the Comfort Inn on I-74."

Crap! This can't be right?! $3800?!? How could it be so far off. I began feverishly checking every number against last year's taxes. I found nothing. Oh no. I knew Erin was already mad at me, and she looked so peaceful sleeping. I had to tell her. I had no choice. I entered the room once, but turned and ran away -- squealing a little bit as I did so. I couldn't do it. No, I had to. I reentered the room. I gently slid the lamp away from her nightstand, relocated a pair of nearby scissors, and gently tried to wake her. As she came around, she said, "What is it?" I said, "We have a small problem."

"What is it?"

"Our taxes. We owe $3800."

I could immediately see her begin to have to restrain herself from calling me a variety of names, most of which might be defined as an "unintellectual posterior." She asked if I checked everything, and I explained how I came to this conclusion. After fuming at me for a couple of hours, she informed me that we were going on a strict budget. I agreed, and we spent a couple of hours creating a budget for the next year to get us through taxes, adoption, and any potential hospitalizations I might require (my friends and family will understand that this is a required line item on any budget Erin and I create). Erin cut down on big things for her including a few luxurious grocery items such as this oat-nut bread she likes as well as higher priced cleaning supplies for the house, while I cut out an iPod, my requisite five CDs per month, and at least one steak per weekend. Everyone has their limits. In any case, we both agreed that we would get through it, and that we had done what we had to do.

Now here's the funny part of the story. I received my W-2 Friday evening. I compared my guess entries in TurboTax to my real W-2, and I was off by a little bit. Just a little. Enough that we get a $50 refund, rather than owing $3800. Sorry, hon! My initial thought was that perhaps this was God's way of getting me to analyze our budget (and by analyze, I really mean create) -- a request of Erin's for approximately the last three years. It was a good exercise, and I think we're still going to use some of it, but we're definitely not in the bad spot we thought we were. Erin was surprisingly calm when I told her about my blunder. We even managed to laugh about it...well I was able to laugh once I got her hands off my throat.

Moral of the story -- There is a relatively high percentage of voodoo involved with figuring out your taxable income for the year. Don't try to guess it -- just patiently wait for all the W-2's to arrive.

And to my lovely wife's credit, she handled the whole situation with her usual patience and grace. I, too, handled it with elegance and grace. I'm sure my digestional tract will go back to normal eventually.

The good news is that I'm still on track to get an iPod by summer. That'll keep me occupied when I'm waiting in line for a CPA to do our taxes next year.

Bret