Taxes

We did our taxes over the weekend.

Did you read that?

WE did our taxes over the weekend. This is super exciting, and not because we owed money at the end of the exercise.

This is the first time in seven years that we have been able to do our own taxes!

Eric has a degree in economics, with an emphasis in managerial accounting. I have an advanced degree. Yet, we were not able to do out taxes ourselves. Our friend LeAnne, who is an accountant, can attest to this, since for six of those seven years, she helped us through the mess that was our tax returned.

See, while I worked full-time for the Court, for six years, I was a contract employee, on a 1099. This meant that the Court didn't pay the employer portion of income tax, I did. I didn't have vacation days, sick days, or benefits. I also worked several part-time jobs where I was on a W-2, and the employer DID pay their portion of the taxes. Add to that, Eric worked full-time from home for his job. Great, but that also has tax implications related to home office use, utilities, internet, etc. Oh, and he also had that computer-fixing business, which had profit/loss statements every year, and we had to keep track of sales tax (we've since closed the business. Don't ask, he's not fixing computers anymore, and my carpet is finally free of teeny-tiny screws!)

I would literally go to LeAnne's house with a milk crate full of documents. We would slog for hours through the documents while Eric took the kids to ice cream. Then, I would leave the documents with her and she would finish them.

It got worse when we moved.

2012's taxes had all of the above, PLUS partial year status on all of the above, moving from one state to another (meaning income tax in two states), a new job for me, and the end of the home-office.

It took 3 weeks for H and R Block to figure out our return.

This year?

1 w-2 each.
No home office (no piles of bills from utilities that needed accounting for)
No 1099's
No small business.

They took like an hour, sitting at the kitchen table.

So, yea, we owe money. But YIPPEE! We figured that out ourselves!!!