we went to our tax appointment today.
a little bit of history: after last year’s tax appointment, we’re determined to NOT GET FUCKED by the government and AMT again. so we immediately go out and buy a house. and then we have that baby. and we make her extra cute so they get the picture: WE HAVE DEDUCTIONS. LEAVE US ALONE.
and plus, we make her extra small: WE HAVE HUNGRY BABY. LEAVE US MONEY FOR FOOD.
so, we go into our appointment today, loaded with everything we could have possibly done. the appointment takes a really long time. this is never a good thing.
after putting in all the numbers and everything, click whirrr pop ding! out spits the number.
i am aghast. i am stunned. i see it, but the information can’t actually make it from my eyeball to my brain stem.
let me be clear: i’m not expecting a windfall, but with all that we’ve done, i’m hopefully that it’s less than last year. ideally, much less than last year.
not more than TWICE AS MUCH as last year.
TWICE AS MUCH.
more than. and some.
holy crap.
it turns out that all the stock options i exercised as well as the stock i sold to cobble together the down payment on the house so we’d have a reasonable mortgage payment end up fucking me over as they get recorded as standard income. which again causes AMT to screw me.
where are we going to get all that money? that’s like as much as several starbucks baristas make in a single year. i probably could cobble together that much, but that would be ALL MY MONEY. which doesn’t seem to be a good idea, to get rid of all your money. does it? i recall some other short people showing up around here with their hand out. sure, i could probably get a HELOC loan out of my house, but how many years is it going to take me to pay that shit off? christ, i just can’t pull that much money out of my arse. sell the miata? sell a kidney?
suddenly i’ve got visions of us losing the house. we thought we were being so good and so careful, and instead we’re another one of those subprime casualties: buying a house that we couldn’t really afford. instead of buying we should have just rented a place somewhere, while i go shuck burgers or work as a night watchman.
our minds reel. we are morose for the rest of the afternoon.
a few hours later, our accountant calls. she says that she was rechecking the figures because she thought it was a strangely huge bill. it turns out that she found an error, and our bill is a little less.
by THIRTY FOUR THOUSAND DOLLARS.
i wept all over again. we still have to pay a huge chunk, but never before have i been so happy to pay so much money.
Posted at March 18, 2008 9:26 PM| TrackBackit is time to get a new accountant. one who can count. make them prove it by counting to 34,000. then you’ll be sure.
be thankful you don’t have to pay taxes using two currencies in two countries with off-set tax years and conflicting rules about filing married/non. it’s as much fun as it sounds.
Posted by: xz at March 25, 2008 10:17 PMWow. I had to pay up the arse for my self-employed taxes, but I would’ve had a heart attack with that mistake!
Posted by: Earl at April 15, 2008 6:21 AM