I say this every year: Next year, I’ll do my own taxes!
April 13, 2007
Not five minutes ago, I scored a major triumph: the accountant completely skipped over my painstakingly compiled graph with all the pertinent details of my Federal Excise Tax Credit (darned if I was going to take their paltry $40 credit).
After walking him through the Form number and all, he recalculated with the better-than-his standard credit and found that not only do I not owe money, I’ll get a baby refund of $75. Hey, I’m not complaining, I’m just happy I don’t have to waste a check or a stamp!
Turns out, though, there was a nuance to the somewhat tangled family finances that I never uncovered in my combing of the IRS publications: MaDucky earned too much for me to claim her as a dependent as Head of Household. Because she’s married to him, and we obviously can’t both claim him as our dependent, I thought this would sink my carefully planned tax year.
It turns out that while she can file a joint return as a married individual, I can still claim his exemption on my taxes. She gets a partial benefit on her standard deduction (looks like she’s filing for 1.5 deductions) and I get the rest of it in the form of another exemption $3,300, thereby splitting the benefits of having PaDucky around. And he’ll still do her laundry. 😉
My return and her 9 W-2 forms, from working for various clients, will run us a total of $120. Oh and I get a ridiculous state refund: $1290. After the fees, I’ll be up a $1245 windfall that I didn’t expect. That means I can take about $200 off the top to pay some bills, if necessary, and throw that whole extra thousand into my house fund (or my rather depleted e-fund). Strangely, that doesn’t sound as fun as it should.
And yes, I did remember to give him my bank account number to direct deposit my refund. I’ll be watching for my fat deposit on April 27th. Oh, the joys of technology! *dancing the jig o’ triumph*
So was it worth it? Worth a whole $120? Well, I didn’t have to labor over every single number. Of course, neither did he, since he used a program – and admitted that’s why he missed my nifty non-standard credit. But was it worth not spending my hours over, and getting to just double check someone else’s work? The lazy part of me says yesyesyes! Eh, in principle I still think I should do it myself. But I’m being really lazy. It’s probably because the cost is not great enough, yet, for me to say “Oh no you din’t!” just yet.
That’s also probably because he normally discounts for us too. Last year that $120 would have been reduced to, say, $100 or $75. Next time, PaDucky can ask him for the total because I have a sneaking suspicion that he’s scared of Pa and will discount on account of not wanting to say the “real amount.” What? Is that wrong or something?
*OH!* Duh, I know where that $1000 should go! In my 2007 Roth!! Nothing’s been deposited there yet, and it’s too late to fully fund the 2006 account. Yes?
