Tax time!

It is that time of year again.  Tax time!  I gave myself a deadline to get everything ready to send off to our CPA by the end of the month.  With February being a shorter month, it is getting down to crunch time.  I always admire those who are pretty much ready to go once their tax forms arrive in their mailbox.  In my own defense, ours have become a bit more complicated.  Even more so this past year with having started a business.  I also know that January and February are the busiest months for our CPA so I like to give him a break and not send ours in right away.  My excuse and I’m sticking to it!

When it comes to tax stuff, I’d rather be doing anything but that!  Just not my thing.  I even hired a bookkeeper to handle the sales tax end of my business.  Dealing with the tax divisions of multiple states was becoming one big headache.  Yesterday I spent a fair amount of time catching up with the business expense part of my accounting program.  I am now ready to run all those reports to give to our CPA.

Today I will tackle the medical expenses we incurred.  This is this first time we should have enough to claim.  2016 was a rough year health wise.  Broken bones resulting in needing surgery, physical therapy, a cancer scare, the dreaded over 50 colonoscopy along with a very high deductible meant a lot of money out of pocket.  Once this part is finished I can move on to adding up all of DH’s business expenses and then our usual household stuff.

I believe that there is always a silver lining to every challenge, even with compiling tax information.  With getting a clearer picture of our financial numbers for last year I am truly amazed that we survived!  Our income was significantly lower and our expenses were significantly higher.  We still managed to financially support our church and make other various donations. Although a true struggle, we were able to keep our heads above water and pay all our bills.  As difficult as the year was, we survived!  Probably one of the best things that came out of having such a rough year is that both DH and I see how urgent it is to get control of our finances.  It would have been a much less stressful year had we not had to worry about money.

While I still have more work to do with compiling our tax info, I am making progress.  It will probably be mid March until we know exactly where we stand.  I always pray that we don’t owe, but if we do, we will cross that bridge when we come to it.

Do you dread doing your taxes or is it (gasp!) something you actually look forward to each year?

Lucy