Thursday, March 6

As easy as ABC

The IRS loves letters. And weird number-letter combinations. And pain. Oh, yeah, and your money. Normally, tax time doesn't bother me because I get a nice little return every year. I've got one W-2, no other interest income, nothing fancy, it's me and the 1040EZ and we are a go, Houston. Not so much this year. Since I was employed for half of the year and then kind of half-assed self-employed the rest of the year, the IRS has devised an intricate series of hoops for me to jump through (only some of which are on fire). There's the 1099 that I was supposed to get from some of my employers (though they have failed to do so); there's the Schedule C; there's the Schedule SE (for self-employment tax!). There's probably a few others out there that I'm missing and sure to get audited for. Since my income fell solidly into the "woeful" column, you'd think they could make this easier for me, but no. Even the instructions on whether or not I can file the Schedule C-EZ are confusing! I'm pretty sure the IRS means that "EZ" to signify "easy," and they are so very, very wrong.

Is it bad to blog about the IRS? I'm going to get audited now, aren't I? The thing is, I don't mind giving the government some of my money. Really, I don't. But do they have to make it so damn hard?

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