Sunday, May 1, 2011

Entertaining Myself With My Taxes

I repaired to the office (bedroom) today to do The Taxes. I find it mildly enjoyable, if given time and space. Had plenty of both.




The felines were present for moral support.
  

I used Ufile first, cause I used to find it easier than Quicktax. But they were TOO simple and tried to make me declare thousands less to the Quebec government, which I don't think They would have appreciated.

Ufile was all...!! Woo!!


 "U file silly" I told it.



After some fiddling, and sending an email which still hasn't been answered, I tried out Turbotax.

I was immediately struck by THE CUTESINESS OF IT ALL!

And who wouldn't want to follow this wee roadmap??

 

If the Israelis and Palestinians were given this as a Roadmap to Peace, they'd make real headway. Who wouldn't be eager to get to step 2, step 3, step 4 5 and the FLAG! "Let's get this borders thing settled, boys, I want get to the picture of Jerusalem!"

Compared to Ufile:

  

Plus they had a screen in the corner that suspensefully increased and decreased with every question I answered and data I entered! Ohhh the drama of it all! (No this was not the final number. But the drama!!)


And let's not forget the window on the right where you could check in on everyone else's livetime agonies, and either laugh at their stupid questions, or get answers to your stupid questions.



I was able to enter the T4 and Relevé information accurately this time, and fiddle with my donations, and I understood the medical expenses better (I should have been keeping prescription bills all year, for the amounts not covered by insurance - frick!)

People often suggest I should hire someone, and I have done when Fernando or I had back years to catch up on. But with a couple simple T4s, it's really not worth it. It's gotten more and more expensive, whereas this cost me $30 for the two of us. If I had a business, or worked freelance etc., then I'd hire someone.

The other question to consider is how much my time is worth--my pay per hour. But I measure that against the self-esteem I gain from accomplishing the work, and the sense of confidence from better understanding my taxes, and what I need to be doing throughout the year to prepare for next year's. That's worth my time.


Of course, like many things in life, it's all a big LETDOWN when the other guy isn't there for you in the end. I tried to upload my files and both governments were all "We're, like, SLEEPING now? And you have until MAY 6 moron? So like come back at 7 AM like a real person. F**cking night owls."


 

I'm gonna go make cookiez.   :-)  Booyakasha.


Thanks to my dad for putting up with my breathtaking tax updates all night.

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