Not good news (taxes) [Archive] - Simple Living Forums

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Float On

3-5-19, 5:47pm

The worst news is I just learned our good friend and accountant passed away last night. I'm sure it was tax season stress plus he had a bad heart and had a heart attack a few years ago. So anyway...He hadn't gotten to ours yet and he was the only accountant in the office with family help. His poor wife, having to make this same phone call over and over today. She's mailing us back our tax stuff....and I've got to either do it myself or find a new accountant. I always appreciated the ease of sending them off and we're really in shock of the loss of a dear friend.

Teacher Terry

3-5-19, 6:50pm

That’s sad. 2 acquaintances of mine died and both were only 62.

iris lilies

3-5-19, 7:25pm

Ugh, bad timing. Sorry to hear this. File for extension?

CathyA

3-5-19, 9:06pm

Sorry to hear this Float On.......It presents a number of different hardships for a lot of people. Good luck finding another accountant and getting them done. But ,most importantly, I'm sorry you lost a good friend.

rosarugosa

3-5-19, 9:57pm

I'm sorry for the loss of your friend and accountant, Float On.

Money and Mountains

3-6-19, 1:29am

So sorry to hear that! :( I will be thinking about you.

nswef

3-6-19, 11:58am

I'm sorry to hear that. It's hard to lose a friend.

dado potato

3-8-19, 4:46pm

A few years ago, I decided I would learn to file my own taxes. I thought of the fee I was accustomed to paying as my "incentive". I kept the dollar amount in mind, in relation to the number of hours I was putting in. (We are all on a learning curve.) The first year I was not "paid" very well per hour, because it took me a long time to find and understand all the instructions I needed. And I still think the instructions can be maddening, especially the ones that say "enter amount from Line ____"!

But the good news is: Repeating the same calculations is much easier and quicker than doing them the first time. I can use a few spreadsheets over, after saving the old, and just using the same formulas with this year's data instead of last years. So, I am "paid" much better per hour now.

I had to deal with fears and insecurities about making a mistake or doing something wrong. (And maybe I did, but if so, the IRS did not notice...)

sweetana3

3-8-19, 5:20pm

Well, I worked for the IRS for 31 years and both prepared, audited and did everything else you could think of regarding returns. We moved states and had partial year returns. Both of us did the tax returns over and over and kept getting different answers. Finally paid for Turbotax for each state and saved almost a thousand dollars. Returns were accepted and never audited so hopefully they were accurate. Turbo tax this year has our fairly basic return showing 132 pages with all its detail and worksheets. Not sure how many need to be submitted. No way do I ever want to have to figure out the complex calculations on a return. Even everyone in the IRS has a Turbotax like program now to calculate returns and changes.

I remember my first IRS job and all our records were on microfilm (pre computer) and I could whip out a return or exam report in minutes with paper, pencil and a simple calculator.

Tammy

3-8-19, 8:53pm

Our son is an accountant. He likes to pull the forms straight from the IRS website and figure it all out by hand, following all the instructions. He once said “that irs.gov website is really good!”

His opinion is that if you use the actual forms, you learn the system. But if you use a tax software program, you never learn the forms and it remains a scary mysterious process.

I however can’t say that I think like he does.

We paid him to do our taxes this year.

sweetana3

3-8-19, 9:19pm

Two years ago, we saved a bunch from a deduction we would never have known about. Turbotax again saved us money. It was an obscure allowance since I was a Federal employee and something to do with Social Security. Not something I would have found.

happystuff

3-9-19, 9:02am

So sorry for the loss of your friend. Prayers going out to family and friends.

rutter

3-9-19, 3:58pm

sorry about your friend. I don't make that much and hopefully qualify for free HR Block online filing

Float On

3-12-19, 10:34am

So I played around with that Turbo Tax and I'm hoping I did something wrong. It's more than double what I owed last year. Think I'll still take it to someone...just for the peace of mind and I'll keep digging and see if I can find more expenses to put against DH's contract work side-gig. We may decide that income stream isn't worth it and I'm sure he'd love a little extra time off.

iris lilies

3-12-19, 12:10pm

Float On

3-12-19, 12:48pm

Completely off topic, but did you see that Claire Hartley died in December? Poor little girl.

Iris, thank you so much for remembering that I knew them. I did not hear the news...we're so out of the loop with our artist circle of friends. She and her sister were such joys to be around. I'll tell my husband and we'll send a card. He found out yesterday another music friend passed away and his funeral is Thursday.