Thursday,
March 13, 2003
One should not do taxes when one is feeling crappy
I stayed home today because, well, I felt like shit, to be honest. But since I was home and moderately mobile, I decided to tuck in and do the taxes.
And may I just say -- HOLY FUCK. I am tempted to hunt down and interrogate the ex-HR person at my company (she left for another job, and she should be extremely grateful that she did because she would be having a very unpleasant tomorrow otherwise) and find out just what was going on in her head, because somehow I wound up underpaying my federal tax by about $2,700. I deliberately didn't take any deductions, so the fact that I'm that far in the hole floored me until I looked at the tax tables and discovered that for my biweekly gross salary range, my federal withholding should be at least $96 more than it actually is. The only way this could happen is if I was taking 10+ deductions -- which I'm not. Watch Mellie's PMS go nuclear.
Since I couldn't sleep due to this dreadful number, I decided to estimate from Lyndon's last paycheck what his total income and fed taxes would be (because I can't find his W-2 for love nor money), then calculated a joint return. The amount we owe goes down to a little over $600, which is manageable if still painful. So tomorrow I go into work and tell them to bump up my withholding.
Arrgh. . .
Later, after a drink and some violent thoughts. . .
I'm slightly more sanguine about the tax situation.Ê Number one, it could be so much worse -- we have the necessary money, so I won't bitch too much. Number two, at least I'll get my withholding adjusted so that we won't have this unpleasant surprise next year.
And number three,
I just feel too crappy to care. Bleurgh.