Having never filed income taxes on line before, I was a little nervous about the process. Still am, in fact. I input all the numbers I had on my various forms — W 2, 1099-DIV and K-1. The software is totally interactive, and I answered all the questions as correctly as I knew how. And yet, I’m nervous.
Maybe part of the reason is that they try to sell you a personal tax consultation, and when you don’t bite they try to sell audit protection. Now, I don’t think there’s much chance of my being audited by the IRS, because I’m such a small fish. I’m pretty sure they go after the more obvious sharks and leave guppies like me alone.
Still, I’ve never been a member of a limited liability company before. That’s new, and so are the deductions I took for charitable contributions and the state vehicle license fee. This last thing is something I wouldn’t have even known about if the tax program hadn’t told me it was deductible. I’m just glad I kept as many records as I did, and you can bet I’ll keep even closer watch on such things the rest of this year.
There’s a 24 to 48 hour waiting period before I learn whether my return has been accepted. I’m nervous about that, because it won’t leave me much time to make any corrections or adjustments, or to get help if I need it. This whole process is new to me. I’ve always been able to file the easy short forms in the past, and it might take me a while to relax about it.
The thing is, I don’t know how the taxes were calculated. I have to take it on faith that the program did everything correctly, because I can’t print a copy until after it’s been accepted. I don’t know how my participation in The Kennel affected my taxes, either positively or negatively, and I don’t know how much my charitable donations might have saved me. It’s a matter of loose ends that need to be tied up, in my mind anyway. That makes me a little nervous. |