Now that it’s the beginning of February and everyone has gotten us our tax documents, it’s time for the Garcia household to do taxes.
So Louis and Papa sat down this morning to plug the numbers into Turbo Tax.
It got me reminiscing about tax time in my family growing up.
Growing up, Dad did the taxes with a paper form (when did electronic filing and tax software start? He probably started using TurboTax sometime in my teen years).
April 15 meant papers spread across the kitchen table as dad crunched numbers and filled out the form.
Why April 15? Well, no need to give the government your money any sooner than necessary. Let it sit in your own bank account earning you money. (Of course, this logic only applies if you’ll be paying taxes versus getting a refund for taxes already withheld.)
Around 11, it’d be time to slide the completed form into its envelope and carefully affix the stamp, flag flying upside down as a sign of distress.
Then to the car, to drive to the downtown post office, where uniformed employees stood beside the big blue mailboxes collecting tax forms from all of us to-the-wire filers. (Is that memory correct? Were there really people there collecting tax documents? Or were we so late that they were there counting down the time until midnight when they’d empty the mailbox and ding everyone after us as a late filer? Or am I just imagining the person in uniform standing beside the mailbox during those late night visits?)
Let’s just say that our children will have a very different experience of doing taxes than I did.
I think just once my husband and I drove down to the post office late the night of April 15 to send our taxes in. I remember there were a lot of cars but I can’t remember if there were P.O. employees out. But we decided that last minute race was too stressful, so we either got it done earlier or filed an extension thereafter.
I didn’t know an upside down flag was a sign of distress. When I was growing up, I was told an upside down stamp meant “I love you,” but I was always afraid if I did that with the flag stamp, they’d think I was subversive. :-) I had told a roommate about the upside down stamp thing in college (I don’t remember, but I guess it came up because more letters were sent then). Her boyfriend was from Canada, and his response when she told him about it: “I can’t turn the queen on her head!” :-)
ugh, I dread tax season. We are farmers and have lots of receipts and things to gather for our accountant. I could not begin to know all the tax codes and laws that apply to us. If I were a better bookkeeper at home this wouldn’t be an issue but I do P&L and bookkeeping all day and I dread getting started on my taxes.