Doing my taxes, or “Everything Everywhere All Screwed Up” ∣ Ervolino
I grew up hearing that only two things in life were certain: death and taxes.
Mind you, I also grew up hearing that ostriches buried their heads in the sand, George Washington wore wooden dentures and the rest of us should never begin a sentence with “yet,” “and” or “but.”
Yet, I do.
And, I don’t care.
But, let’s get back to death and taxes.
As near as I can tell, death isn’t so bad. It’s no picnic, either. But, you only have to do it once.
Taxes, on the other hand, have to be paid over and over again. Then, every year, you have to tell the government all about it with a special emphasis on adjusted gross income, below the line deductions, capital gains and blah blah blah.
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Frankly, the whole thing is a grind. And, by Dec. 31, when you’ve forgotten that tax season ever happened, it starts all over again.
Every January, my mailbox begins to clog up with official-looking envelopes that purportedly contain IMPORTANT TAX DOCUMENTS.
Every February, I tell myself — and anyone within earshot — that I am going to collect all these IMPORTANT TAX DOCUMENTS and file my returns early.
Then, March rolls around.
Then, April. And, that’s usually when I realize that these IMPORTANT TAX DOCUMENTS are scattered all over my house in New Jersey, my apartment on Long Island, and assorted locations in between.
Last year, I couldn’t find one of my W-2 forms until April 6, when it turned up in the glove compartment of my SUV, under a pile of brown eco-friendly napkins that I appropriated from Chipotle.
(Just between us, what I really wanted to appropriate from Chipotle was a big bottle of that green “salsa verde” stuff, but stealing is morally wrong. And, it’s illegal. And, I didn’t wear a jacket with pockets that were large enough to hide the bottle.)
If you have spent any time with me, you probably know that I have a psychotic aversion to paperwork.
A good part of this has to do with my nasty habit of transposing numbers.
This problem is believed to be part of what some neurologists and other medical professionals call “dyscalculia,” an umbrella phrase that includes several conditions related to achievement — or, rather, non-achievement — in mathematics.
According to dyscalculia.org, about 6 percent to 7 percent of the population has severe dyscalculia. And I guess that number includes weird, wonderful me.
Should you care, I am also left-handed, which affects about 10 percent of the population. And I am cute as a button, which affects 12 percent of the population.
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Dyscalculia is why I entrust all of my tax junk to my old friend Danny. He and I worked part time as waiters back in the ‘70s to earn extra dough — while making names for ourselves in our chosen professions.
In 1976, I went to work for a newspaper and he became an apprentice accountant. Then he bought out his boss’s practice, expanded it, opened a larger office and became a CPA.
And, I’m…
Still working for a newspaper.
One might think that toiling away for crumbs for so many years would make doing my taxes easy. But, it’s never been easy.
Two years ago, after listening to Danny scold me for three years in a row because I didn’t bring in any receipts, I showed up with a Hefty bag filled with papers: restaurant receipts, grocery receipts, bills from the dog groomer, losing lottery tickets, an entire handful of fortune cookie fortunes.
“What is all this junk?” Danny yelled. “And these receipts! Some of them go back to 1998!”
“Oh, that’s OK,” I told him. “Just cut off the tops where the dates are. There’s no way they’re going to check all this stuff. Do you have scissors?”
Then, he REALLY yelled.
“Are you crazy?”
Our session went on for two hours as he tried to stitch together my return.
“And what are all these things?” Danny asked. “Twelve parking receipts, all with the same date and time?”
“Oh, yeah, that was my cousin’s anniversary party in New York. I asked a few of the guests to give me their parking receipts.”
He tore them to shreds and tossed them into the trash.
Eventually, the return was done and Danny told me to sign here, here and here.
“And don’t ever come back!”
I thought everything ended up fine — and I did get a decent refund a few weeks later.
Danny, unfortunately, had a nervous breakdown and was hospitalized for a week before going into rehab.
When I finally visited him, he seemed all right and eager to leave.
“There are a bunch of forms my doctor needs to release me,” he said from his bed. “Could you take them and fill them out for me?”
Anyway, that was four years ago, and he’s still there.
I’m not good with paperwork.
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: April 15 is tax day. Don't use Bill Ervolino's method to file taxes
