So I spent most of a weekend in 2016 working on my taxes. I have come to a few simple revelations about taxes:
- When I had to choose a major at University, I did not select Accountancy. My love of accountants is infinite (some of my best friends are number crunchers). However I am just not a details guy, and that is a bad trait to have if you are a lover of Arithmetic on steroids (aka Accountancy).
- I am happy that I blog, and I keep PDFs of my previous years’ tax returns because they remind me of everything I have to remember to include in my return. This is all without all the new tax rules. I barely remember the old ones.
- I thank the person who wrote the first tax preparation software. Those heady days of doing this by hand, and I was not too fond of it even more back then. Yes, there are psychotic number lovers who do their taxes by hand (for fun), but I am not that guy.
I was bummed that no one sent me any Tax Prep Software giveaway swag, but I guess I am not mainstream.
Here is a list (yes, I wouldn’t say I like lists, but in this case, I will be a hypocrite) of the things I always forget until I look at the previous year tax returns:
- What the heck am I claiming as a business expense? Yeh, I claim this thing as a business (hard to believe). Expenses? How much does it cost to have this thing hosted (this isn’t running on some free site)?
- I need to remember to get my remaining child, who transfers tuition to me, to sign a form, in case my friends at the CRA want to see my receipts.
- The UCCB is changing again, but for now, you still have to claim the income from last year.
- I had to go back through my Quicken logs for 2015 to find my:
- Charitable donations that I forgot. My Church gives me a great receipt, but smaller donations tend to slip through the cracks
- All my medical expenses. Remember I am claiming my son’s school fees as a medical expense as well, so finding all of the Occupational Therapy sessions he had (my insurance does not pay for that), helps out as well.
To those waiting until the last minute to do their taxes, I wish you bonne chance. You will be waiting a while for any refund. I have submitted my children’s returns (they are straightforward), and I have completed my “first draft,” but will wait two days to reflect further on things I may have missed or forgotten.
