I finished almost all of our federal taxes a couple of weeks ago, and then I stalled out. I didn't pull the trigger because I wanted Elwood to look our tax return over before I filed it, and because I wasn't fussed about the state taxes. The state tax forms are quick and easy, usually.
The exception to the "usually," in my experience, is if a person tries to do them at the last minute. The last time I tried to do them on the evening they were due, the server seemed to be creaking and groaning beneath its load. "Toooooo maaaaaaany peeeeeeople," I could practically hear it saying, as my pages failed to load for long exasperating minutes.
"Maybe it will be better this year?" I said optimistically to myself as I sat down to crank them out this evening. Alas, I will never know if it would have been better. I couldn't log in, I couldn't get the system to send me a password reset email, and the other option seemed to be for me to request a paper letter in the US mail that might take 10 business days to arrive.
So I pretended it was 1998, and put paper tax forms in the mail to my state.
This required some High-Speed Tax-Filing Action, because I came to the conclusion that this was the best option at 6:10, and the last mail pickup in Gladlyville is at 7, at a post office about 10 minutes from our house. Forty minutes is not the amount of time I would choose to allot for old-school tax form completion, but TRA-LA-LAAAA, the forms are done and in the mail.
I am out of practice with all the schedules that they want you to print out if you are downloading old-school forms, though. The state's online filing interface takes you pretty seamlessly from one to the next, and automatically includes them all in your electronic submission. I think that in my haste I forgot to include a physical copy of the form that tells them what my dependents' social security numbers are. Perhaps they will not mind too much since they will get their money on time. Perhaps the people opening the envelopes will say to themselves, "Yeah, probably their dependents' SSNs have not changed." Let us hope so.
Earlier this month I was feeling a little indignant about TurboTax's offer to file my state taxes for the low low price of $49, which seems to me like a blatant and ethically sketchy effort to separate people intimidated by tax forms from their money. But you know, if I get hit with some kind of penalty for filing an incomplete state tax return, I might wish that I had been a little less indignant and a little more willing to be separated from my money.
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