For nearly a decade, we've had access to a tax center staffed by volunteers, to help us out during tax season. The man typically gets everything mostly prepared in advance, verifying that he has all the supporting documents, and he runs rough numbers, before going in for the volunteers to check everything over and enter our data in the software for free e-filing. This is a great step forward from what we had in the years before that, with him doing everything himself, but it only trimmed a little stress off the process. It didn't eliminate it. For almost twenty years the system has gone something like this: Mr S-P starts looking over tax forms. He fills in a couple blanks. He swears. He claims we will owe. He swears more. He finds different documents and looks at different schedules. He swears more. He reads more, and then announces we may not owe, but we will only get a little back. He swears a little less foully, but still swears. He has an A-Ha! moment. He says we'll get an okay refund. He finalizes taxes. We end up getting a respectable refund (some years more than we feel like we ought to get). He stops swearing. I am willing to get within 20 feet of him again, and I sign my portion of the documents. Time passes. Money arrives. I don't get very picky about where it goes from there, because he makes more of the income it was earned off of, and he had to go through the hassle of getting it. /Scene/
Technically, there is one of these free tax centers we could go to again, but it's more than an hour drive away now, and that just sounds like more hassle than it's worth, knowing that we'd probably have to make multiple trips. The last couple times they warned us that we were getting too complex for their volunteers, and we were about to graduate (or get kicked out) to paid professional services. And that was before we sold one of our rental properties and I got my real estate license (considered starting a business, with new schedules and deductions). We wandered over to H&R Block, the one that's across the parking lot from our favorite coffee shop, and asked about how much they thought it would cost, with all of our moving parts. The man said probably about $400 (the half price sale doesn't apply since we weren't paying before). So we thanked him and turned and left. For a quarter of that price, we bought the TurboTax software from Costco, and we get to go through the old method of Mr GrumpyPants doing it all himself. Hopefully the ads are right, and it is so easy anyone can do it. He'll be miffed if he has to go through all of this and then turn around and go back to a for-pay accountant. (Too bad my old friend I've known since 5th grade, the one who is a CPA, doesn't live closer. I'd totally give her my business.)
I'm still on kitten watch. I am completely addicted to this Livestream. I had my attention elsewhere, and missed the beginning explanation, but I tuned in late tonight to see a beat-up tail sticking out of a towel-wrapped cat in Shelly's lap. She was pointing out where it looked like it was punctured, and at first the tail was limp. Her voice was wavering, and I thought she was dealing with a fatality. Then the tail moved from Shelly's hand and curled itself around the toweled body, and I understood that yet another feral was trapped from the colony, this time in a small amount of distress. She had abscesses on her tail and backside, tested negative for ringworm, but may yet be pregnant. So let's add up here. At Tiny Kittens HQ, there are now four feral female cats, three of which are certainly pregnant, and one who may be pregnant. And there is ONE human woman in charge of keeping them alive, fed, safe, and calm. For sure, the Langley Animal Protection Society (LAPS) is supporting her, and she has a veterinarian on a hot line, but this is a lot for one person. I hope she has local volunteers to get her through kitten season. Holy cow.
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