{"id":2476,"date":"2019-02-20T02:25:45","date_gmt":"2019-02-20T02:25:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/?p=2476"},"modified":"2019-02-20T02:25:45","modified_gmt":"2019-02-20T02:25:45","slug":"taxes-wargames","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/2019\/02\/20\/taxes-wargames\/","title":{"rendered":"taxes, wargames"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>I got my taxes done on Sunday.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I think.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I hope.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I got there early, as I usually do, and got checked in. \u00a0It must have taken the receptionist aback that I was early and she offered their drop off service. \u00a0I said \u201cNo thanks, I&#8217;m fine with waiting,\u201d<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>She told me the name of the tax pro that I would be seeing &#8211; different than I\u2019d had last year &#8211; and said he would be finished soon. &nbsp;I was fine with that and sat to wait with some paper to fold.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When it got close to the appointment time, another tax pro came over and told me that my guy was just finishing up. &nbsp;I thanked her and said I was really fine with waiting.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When it got to be a little past the time for my appointment and he still wasn\u2019t done, she came back over and took me back to her office to do my taxes. &nbsp;&nbsp;It looked like she\u2019d been working on someone else\u2019s and I saw far too much of their info before she got that put away.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I saw on the computer screen that had her name that she had 4 years of tax experience. <br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Hmmmm\u2026.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We got started and I gave her my paperwork &#8211; and then my driver\u2019s license when she asked for it. &nbsp;She commented that they had the Date of Birth on the new licenses in a strange and hard to read spot, but she got it typed in &#8211; then commented that I had a birthday coming up. <br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Puzzled, I told that it had just passed. &nbsp;We looked at the license again and that number might have been a 4 instead of a 1 &#8211; though the full DoB was elsewhere on the license and much more readable there.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Hmmmm\u2026<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With that corrected, she starting going through the paperwork &#8211; carefully entering information onto the screens and then studying it. &nbsp;And then deleting those records. <br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I tried to follow along and it looked like she got the interest paid and interest earned forms mixed up. &nbsp;When the summary fields showed red errors and the refund was projected at $3,000 more than last year, she called another tax pro for some help.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Hmmmm&#8230;<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The two of them worked through that error and she kept going &#8211; setting \u201ccompleted\u201d forms aside and then going back to them to re-enter the info. &nbsp;One of the documents had a number in the wrong box and she called for some help again &#8211; they decided that it should just be skipped.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Finally got around to the refund and it was set to be about $100 less than last year &#8211; which is what I expected. &nbsp;She asked if I wanted direct deposit and I handed her my open checkbook.  She typed the numbers in &#8211; twice &#8211; and needed my help to correct the error that kept coming up.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Hmmmm&#8230;<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I had to sign the documents electronically and then also sign them manually. Also, hmm\u2026<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With everything submitted and printed out, I went up front to pay my bill. &nbsp;I have to mail in the city tax info, but the rest has been submitted online. &nbsp;I got the text messages saying that the Federal and State had been accepted.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And\u2026 &nbsp;I\u2019m guessing I\u2019ll be audited. With as much trouble as she had, I\u2019m almost certain there was some mistake there. &nbsp;The company will cover it, but holy crap, I have no confidence in my taxes this year.   And since that\u2019s a huge part of why I have them done instead of doing them myself, I\u2019m a little wary. &nbsp;I\u2019m debating on going back and seeing someone else for a double-check.  <br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Just in case.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;-<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We\u2019ve got support ticket system at work that is being upgraded. &nbsp;There\u2019s some confusion at the moment since requests sent in by email are going to the old system, then manually closed (with a How Did We Do? email) and replicated in the new system by the helpdesk crew. &nbsp;<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The users are <em>deeply<\/em> confused and one of these tickets got to be such a mess I gave up and called the user and we then finished working it out by email. \u00a0I closed both versions of the tickets and updated my boss.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He\u2019s been a little frustrated with the change-over as well and we talked about it for a few minutes to see how we might be able to help. &nbsp;Not coming up with any solutions, I instead offered:<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s like Global Thermonuclear War. &nbsp;The only way to win is not to play,\u201d<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Being the complete geek he is, he got the reference immediately and did a real-life Laugh Out Loud.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s the little things.<br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I got my taxes done on Sunday. I think. I hope. I got there early, as I usually do, and got checked in. \u00a0It must have taken the receptionist aback that I was early and she offered their drop off service. \u00a0I said \u201cNo thanks, I&#8217;m fine with waiting,\u201d She told me the name of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_bluesky_dont_syndicate":"","_bluesky_syndication_accounts":"","_bluesky_syndication_text":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2476"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2476\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2477,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2476\/revisions\/2477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}