by Tom Stewart

Created on: March 26, 2009

April 15th is around the corner. Do I have to file my taxes? You bet I do. That's the deadline. So I'm getting out my number 2 pencil and calculator and letting the confusion begin. Every year we are all burdened with the act of filing our taxes. But we're not just filing our taxes. We're sitting down and calculating them with lots of different forms and numbers and percentages. It's such a headache for those of us who don't know what we're doing.

Why is doing our taxes so difficult? I'm a man with above average intelligence. I understand numbers and basic math. But no matter how many times I read the tax booklets, I can never figure out what I'm supposed to write in those little boxes on the forms. Why do they have to so complicated? Nothing in those instruction booklets makes sense. Why do we even have to do our taxes anyway?

Every year, I go through the same routine of filling out this form, subtracting those numbers, and completing this schedule. I put all the numbers where I think they belong and I get a total. About the only thing I understand on my tax forms are the little smiley faces. When I'm getting money back it's a happy face. If I owe it's a sad face. Everything else on the form is like reading Chinese to me. Every year, I mail out my taxes and I get a notice several weeks later showing the mistakes I made. This tells me that the IRS or someone somewhere is checking my forms and numbers and verifying that I did it right. If they're going to re-do the work I've already done, why can't they just do them for me in the first place. Leave me out of it. It only saddens me to see how little money I make every year anyway.

This year after crunching all the numbers and filling in all the boxes I've come to two conclusions. I either owe the state about $100 or I'm getting a refund of $900. I'm not sure if either one is right but I filed the refund version with my fingers crossed. A few years ago I was living in one state but working in another. What a nightmare those taxes were. I had to file taxes for both states plus my federal. The non-resident tax forms will like a book. In the end I had to pay one state eighteen dollars while the other state owed me eighteen dollars. What a waste of time and paper to figure all that out. Why can't one state just pay the other state on my behalf and leave me out of it?

Now I know what you're saying, Tom, just take your taxes to an accountant or the local H&R block. Well, those guys cost money. And someone at the IRS is going to re-do their work to make sure it's correct too. So why bother? And as you can tell, the amount of my refunds every year doesn't add up to much anyway.

So I say to the IRS, just take care of my taxes for me. I have no control over what you're taxing me for anyway. And your booklets and instructions are too confusing. So just do my taxes for me and send me an envelope with a happy face or a sad face on it. I'll know what it means.

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