Taxing

I'm not sure if I have ever blogged about it (I'm sure I have), but I absolutely despise tax time. I have no problem paying taxes, but from past experiences with tax preparation whether it was myself doing it, or paying someone to do it, it's never been a positive experience. We've also come to not expect any refund. With the exception of our first year being married and last year, we've never received a refund. We have always owed. Being a numbers person I've sat down with professional tax preparers, even in the "off season" trying to get our withholding information just right in hopes of at least breaking even instead of having to owe come April 15th. We already claim being married and zero, which should allow for the appropriate measures throughout the year. Obviously that's not been the case, and at this point have found out that we may have to take even further cuts from our paychecks each pay period to help the situation. This goes without saying that I've also been receiving an education credit each year, which helps out big time. Next year (2009) that won't be the case, so it looks like we may just be screwed period. One thing that attributes to this problem is job/location changes. First, David leaving the military, then us moving twice, and then the few changes in David's job status here. Every change throws your tax status into a tailspin, because your job makes deductions based on what you're currently making, which basically prorates your taxes. This would make sense given in 2007 David was in 1 job all year and our taxes worked out, and in 2008 he had changes jobs one, which set us up for tax "problems." But ultimately, once again, my hope is to break even with everything including tax preparation. Thankfully this year we received a certificate for free tax preparation, which helps to keep more of the money in our pocket. But I got to admit it's VERY frustrating when people are talking about getting all of this money back from taxes, and trying to decide what to spend it on, while we sit here thinking, "WTF?!"

Okay, enough about that and on to the real story. We were sitting having our taxes done, just about to print them out to finish up, when we here a big boom, bright sparks flying outside, and the power goes out. The entire complex lost power. Yep. Thankfully the computers had enough backup to save our tax information, and there were no other people having their taxes prepared, but our tax preparation came to an immediate halt. Upon investigation it looked like a helium balloon hit a conductor (?), which caused the problem. We have no idea where the balloon came from, but it was enough to make issues for the surrounding area. We waited around for a bit, but ended up running a few errands before heading back to see if everything was up and running again. It was. So, mission accomplished....our taxes are done, and in David and Heidi fashion.....never a dull moment.