I may have mentioned before that I have an irrational fear of a problem with my taxes.  That I’ll make some kind of mistake, get audited, and get sent to federal prison for the rest of my life.  

The odds are against that, but they aren’t quite zero – no matter how simple my taxes are. The forms and rules are designed to be complicated and I always get so frustrated. 

So, I’ve been taking them to a well known and large company for several years now – working under the assumption that if something does go wrong, I’ll have a large company potentially on my side.  Better than just me vs. the IRS, I reasoned.

Jim and I had been filing our taxes separately since we got married – his job changes made his taxes more complicated than mine.  Last year we decided to file jointly and while that went okay, his former employer hadn’t taken out enough for taxes and we ended up owning a bit. 

This past year, Jim had a tax bill from the city where he used to work, but it was an error.  He had already paid, but was told to keep the next installment’s paperwork and see if he could get it back.   I put the paperwork in a folder – carefully labeled – and we both kinda forgot about it.

For the taxes this year, I gathered up all the paperwork that said “Important Tax Information” as soon as it came in and put it in a folder. 

The pre-scheduled appointment snuck up on Jim and he asked me to reschedule while he reviewed his paperwork.  I called the office and got routed a few times before an A.I. picked up.  With some difficulty, I navigated the menus and got the appointment canceled. 

The day before it was supposed to have happened, I got an email with “Oh, sorry you missed your appointment – it happens.”   I rolled my eyes at that.

When Jim was ready, I made the new appointment online with the same person we had seen last year. 

So, on that Saturday in March, we went to the appointment with all our documents in tow.  I had ignored all the “upload your documents” emails – not willing to do any more work for the money we would be paying – and it was the first step they did when we got there. 

The appointment went okay – the preparer was okay, though she tended to drop her voice for conspiratorial whispers that neither of us could really follow. 

As this was going along, Jim remembered the document we had set aside – but neither of us could remember quite what it covered.  We decided to suspend the filing until we could locate that document and reschedule. 

Before we left, though, we got the bad news that Jim’s new employer hadn’t taken nearly enough out for taxes and we would owe a good chunk of money.

The preparer was maybe a little too enthusiastic about that – though I told Jim it just meant that he’d had a little more in his paycheck over the past year. 

We gathered up our paperwork and went to go get lunch.

When we got home we found the paperwork and on Monday, I called the office to reschedule the appointment.  No one picked up and after a bit, I got an A.I. again.  I tried to schedule the appointment and it was going poorly.  At one point I asked to talk to a human and it responded, “I know you want to talk to a human, but you’re really better off leaving a message for your tax preparer,”

I was not expecting that level of snark from an automated phone system and hung up.  Grumbling, I headed upstairs to the computer to schedule it online.  While I was working on that appointment, I got a call back from a different office – other than the one I had called.  Apparently, if you call one office and it doesn’t pick up, it tries to transfer you to another office – and when that fails, it gets you to the automated system. 

I explained that I had trouble with the automated system and was redoing the appointment online – but thanked the human for the callback. 

I got the appointment scheduled for 6 pm on Friday. 

On Tuesday of that week, I got a call from the office while I was driving and didn’t pick up.  They left a message that their office was closed at 6 on Fridays and that they had rescheduled for 5 pm.  Since Jim works until 4:30, that wasn’t going to work well.  That evening I asked Jim if we could do Thursday at 6:00 if that was available – or when on Saturday if it wasn’t. 

Wednesday morning I called their office again and got routed to some other office.  I was a little confused, but they were able to reschedule us from Friday at 5 to Thursday at 6:00.    Later that day, I got a call again from the original office to confirm and it was all very confusing. 

You should have seen all the automated emails I got.

We got to the appointment in plenty of time on Thursday and got the extra form scanned.  As we were reviewing and wrapping up, it came time for the signatures.  One of the items to sign was a form that gave our consent to share our tax information with various international subsidiaries. 

Which seemed dumb and we wanted to decline.  And while we could, technically, it also meant that we couldn’t use the digital signatures.  (I think that the preparer had never had anyone actually decline and didn’t know what to do.)

So, we had to manually sign the rest of the paperwork and got a fat stack of paper to take with us – as well as the return we had to manually send in for the city and the voucher to include with the payment for the federal taxes.    The paltry refund from the state would go to my checking account and the city would send Jim a check based on that extra form. 

We gathered up all the paperwork, paid less – somehow – than what we paid last year, and were on our way.

I got the email and text messages that our federal and state returns were accepted in short order and now we wait for the rest to be done. 

It’s an awful-on-purpose process, but it’s done for the year. 

And, so far at least, I haven’t been brought up on tax evasion charges. 

So, bonus.