I know I’ve mentioned this before, but it bears repeating, if only because I like hearing myself talk.
I hate taxes. Not paying them. I’m fine with paying my taxes. What I hate is the recordkeeping. I am a crappy record keeper. Or rather, I’m a great record keeper, but a lousy record organizer. I always have something more entertaining to do, so I tell myself I’ll deal with some set of papers at the end of the week. But I don’t. So they all go into a box. And then the box fills up. And then I need to assemble all the tax stuff from the stuff previously filed when I did it and picking out the stuff I need from the box. Then I have to track down stuff I think I need, but I don’t have immediately at hand in my box of papers. This usually entails calling brokerages who ask me a security question I can’t remember because I only call them once a year and they set up the security question on that phone call two years ago. Or having to figure out whether my brother or my father has the record I need, and then making the trip to Everett to get it.
I should explain that last sentence. I’m not only doing my taxes, which are fairly easy. I’m also doing the taxes for my father, a trust set up for his benefit, and my mother’s estate. Hopefully this is the last year for the estate. The money has been distributed, but the paperwork ain’t done. Last year I also had taxes for my grandparents and my grandparents’ estate as well as the previous four entities.
Actually doing the taxes won’t be tough. I’ll take all this paperwork and dump it off on an accountant. (Except for my personal taxes, which I can handle on my own.)
But getting all this together is both frustrating and mentally tough. I get a sense of dark ominous dread when trying to sort through all of it, which makes it even tougher to do, so it gets put off. That makes the dread worse, and the spiral intensifies.
I’ll get it all done. I always manage to break through. (Or I don’t, and I will pay a penalty that isn’t threatening to life or limb…)
One thing that occurs to me as I write this was how much easier mentally doing my grandparents’ estate and taxes was. In that case, I had a lawyer who laid everything out and essentially acted as a project manager. I’m a pretty good project manager, but not for myself.
On the plus side, this should be the last year I need to do any taxes for my mom’s estate. And the records for my father’s and his trust’s taxes should be simpler, because all the accounts are now consolidated in just a couple of places. One of which is my personal broker, with whom I have a great relationship. If I can’t find something for my dad’s trust, I know I’ll be able to get it from him with a minimum of fuss.