Lookdown on a Little Green Heron at Mallory Square

We filed our taxes yesterday. I started the process, but Anne was instrumental to its success. Traditionally, Anne has done our taxes, while I pay the bills. Last year though, she had a long-term substitute gig, which consumed her. So, to help, I stepped in. This year, I wanted to file early as a defense against fraud.

We used TurboTax, which now has enough animations in it to double as a video game. That being said, I didn’t count its use against my screen time budget. My Dad, writes his own tax software, which has always seemed like a lot of work, but it does save him some money and he avoids all of the nonsense.

Anne’s intervention caused us to shift from taking the standard deduction to itemizing. It has been years since we last itemized and from what I read of the new tax law, this year’s filing will be a fluke. Because I am still getting used to this retirement gig, last year, we ended up paying way too much Federal tax and not enough state taxes and I got penalized for that. Next, year we’ll try to avoid this nasty surprise. The net is that we will be getting back more than we still have to pay. Plus, we should get our refund this month and not have to pay until April. This helps to take a lot of the sting out of paying taxes.

I got a paper cut while stuffing the tax documents into a manila envelope. Anne has taken to calling this my new, big, beautiful tax cut. Sad.