tax day

So I waited until the EXTREME last minute this year. I actually did everything except one income item on Thursday, with five days to spare. I didn’t finish that night because I couldn’t report dividend income from some stocks we inadvertently were awarded a couple years ago. Yes, it seems that Al and I were duped into a stinky college savings plan when Jack was a baby. A major financial corp tracked us down and talked us into being responsible, forward-thinking ‘rents, so we began to save via a method that as it turns out, wasn’t the wisest thing we could’ve done. But really we’d have a hard time knowing that because we can’t begin to read the pages they send to us periodically. Such was the case with mailing that evidently was different than the others, but we couldn’t know that. This particular one apparently was to inform us that we’d been awarded shares in a class action lawsuit against said major financial corp. We weren’t aware of this until we began receiving checks and called the check writers for info on why we were getting them.
Lo and behold, the company is now in Canada, so every year, we report dividends from Canada and pay Canadian income tax. It’s not a huge deal, except that this year, we didn’t seem to get a 1099 from them.
Ok, that was quite a digression, but tonight I finally got the needed info, and after a few fun-filled hours at go cart heaven, I quickly added it to my tax return forms and set out to E-file them to the IRS.

**sorry, the filing center is too busy now, please try back in one to two hours**

Wha? I will have missed the deadline! So I sat at my computer and continually pressed (“mashed” is the correct South Carolina term) the transmit button until I caught an open window and they went through with minutes to spare.

Things I’ve learned during this tax year:

The older one gets, what with kids and motorcycles and such, the more tax mail needed to file will be mailed to his residence in a trickle-in fashion occurring between January 1, and April 10. Therefore, when the last item arrives, cancel all previously scheduled items and abandon to-do lists, and immediately file taxes. Trying to find a bandwidth window at 11:30 on tax day is not good for the old ticker.

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