Tax time

[coffeedaiv]

Been a while since i have been here. 

Nearly entirely settled into the Condo. As the weather changes, I am looking at my patio, and thinking... things. Like, what about plants? What about furniture? What about Aglaia (I am certain, given the chance, she would love to get outside, onto the patio (which is fine) and would shortly be over the wall and into the street (which would not be fine))? Can I arrange things so she can have access to the porch, but is unable to leave its confines? Building an actual 'catio' seems unlikely to go over well with the HOA. But I think I can make it work. Maybe. 

The immediate thing is I just more or less finished my taxes. More or less because I finished them, and then remembered that i did not say anything about the sale of Mom's house or the income I got from that. So, because H&R Block is what it is, I had to contact my "tax expert" and say, hey, there is this, what should I do? Can I edit my tax return? And she said, no. but you have to send me this form. 

I don't have this form, I say. 

You should have this form, she says. It comes with the distribution of the estate. 

I don't have it, I was not the executor. I say.

So contact the executor and have him send it to you, she says. 

Okay. I do. Then I look up the form on IRS.gov, and it says "this is for business partnership distributions" and I say, WTF. 

And then I email her and say something a bit more polite than that to her. 

 

Aside from that? All of the money i got was from Mom's IRA accounts, so there are taxes on those. Which is not what I expected, but is what i should have expected; and I don;t much like it, but, really... It's not a big deal. I set aside money for precisely this sort of thing. I did not get this money and go out and spend all of it. Not gonna lie, I spent SOME of it; I have some nifty new fountain pens, I got a new computer, I bought t shirts and I am supporting assorted Patreons. Oh, and there's the Condo I am living in. I bought that. Or, at least, I am buying it. 

It is just... I want to take a vacation. I thought i would be able to pay for it with the tax refund I was getting. But I am not getting a tax refund, so I have to rethink how to pay for my vacation (also, a bike, a couch, and shelves). I have to keep reminding myself, i am okay. Not the way i thought it was going to be, but overall, this is a good plan. My ducks, on the whole, are happily and merrily marching in time and in line. I am able to pay attention to things that need my attention, and when I run across unexpected obstacles, I have the resources to overcome them. 

I may, however, need a different tax professional. 

Comments

[ironymaiden]

if it's any comfort, next year when you will have a full year of mortgage interest payments, you will have a refund again. this is the first year in a long time that we've had a useful refund and it's all due to the mortgage. (i am honestly horrified/betrayed that being bourgeois means the government subsidizes my housing. this is crazy unfair but the money is nice.)

[coffeedaiv]

i get it. My whole experience is generational wealth made manifest. Or, really, about half of it (the other half being me making relatively good financial decisions, under a variety of circumstances). I can see how the system should be made less unfair, and I will continue to support efforts to do that.