I started filing income tax when I was a wee thing, and during and right after college, I always sent off my poor-person's 1040-EZ by mid-January.
As I got older and started earning more (...and acquiring more complicated income from freelance work and eventually marrying a man who was self-employed for over a decade and starting businesses and losing money on investments and making a long-distance move to South Florida from Illinois...), income tax filing became way more of a hassle than using the Fed's little worksheets.
One year, when I ended up at the post office on April 15 (with a completed package that had been sitting on my desk for a while and only required a postmark)--and found myself standing in line with a bunch of sad sacks who were scrambling to actually figure out their tax preparation without losing their spots in line!--I decided it was time to get professional help.
Memories of my four years in Florida (AKA the dick state) are complex: I hated Miami's laid-back attitude but loved my job; I hated the swampy heat and hurricanes but loved that I got married when I lived there; I hated the general culture but loved our accountant! He was actually a pleasure, unlike all of the sorry seasonal-only H+R Block second-stringers who we've been stuck with every year in California.
First of all, I abhor the "your previous accountant has been doing it all wrong" speech every single accountant has given us in the past five years, which seems to be SOP. Seriously, each one has spent at least 40 minutes telling us why he's so great and how everything from past years has been incorrectly prepared, adding in the dentist-style mini-lectures that are meant more to show off what he knows than to help us and pay attention to what we need.
Secondly, most (whether intentionally or not) have methods in common with car salesmen: taking breaks all the time "for coffee" or "to check on something" or "to get a stapler that works" and disappearing to tire out clients. If this is a desired practice, I'm not sure why. If it isn't, then it's a weird coincidence among California's accountant community.
Half of Dan's responsibility when we're getting our taxes prepared is preventing me from screaming in the accountant's face, "Hurry up! Can you type faster? The next field should say 'married'... keep going!" I hate inefficiency in all its forms, and some of the mouth-breathers we've worked with type with two fingers and shuffle through onscreen forms as if they've never seen them before:
1. Accountant silently, slowly reads instructions for field.
2. Accountant starts to say, "Okay, what they need here is... wait, let me see.."
3. Accountant leaves onscreen form to look at another form in a different section.
4. Accountant shuffles last year's return.
5. Accountant moves back to original onscreen form.
6. Accountant says in slow motion, "Okay, what is your name?"
7. Accountant incorrectly types in name I've repeated for the third time.
8. Accountant corrects name by deleting field, asking name again, and retyping.
9. Accountant decides to take a break.
10. Accountant repeats this process over the following five hours.
It has crossed my mind that some firms may train their CPAs to go slow to keep the stress levels down, so the pressure of tax season doesn't erupt in USPS-style bloodshed. I seriously want to tell them to move and let me fill in the data, because I'm there for their accounting skills... not their chicken-pecking kindergarten typing!
Long story short: Tax preparations are due tomorrow, and we need to call our accountant to make sure ours has been filed.
As I got older and started earning more (...and acquiring more complicated income from freelance work and eventually marrying a man who was self-employed for over a decade and starting businesses and losing money on investments and making a long-distance move to South Florida from Illinois...), income tax filing became way more of a hassle than using the Fed's little worksheets.
One year, when I ended up at the post office on April 15 (with a completed package that had been sitting on my desk for a while and only required a postmark)--and found myself standing in line with a bunch of sad sacks who were scrambling to actually figure out their tax preparation without losing their spots in line!--I decided it was time to get professional help.
Memories of my four years in Florida (AKA the dick state) are complex: I hated Miami's laid-back attitude but loved my job; I hated the swampy heat and hurricanes but loved that I got married when I lived there; I hated the general culture but loved our accountant! He was actually a pleasure, unlike all of the sorry seasonal-only H+R Block second-stringers who we've been stuck with every year in California.
First of all, I abhor the "your previous accountant has been doing it all wrong" speech every single accountant has given us in the past five years, which seems to be SOP. Seriously, each one has spent at least 40 minutes telling us why he's so great and how everything from past years has been incorrectly prepared, adding in the dentist-style mini-lectures that are meant more to show off what he knows than to help us and pay attention to what we need.
Secondly, most (whether intentionally or not) have methods in common with car salesmen: taking breaks all the time "for coffee" or "to check on something" or "to get a stapler that works" and disappearing to tire out clients. If this is a desired practice, I'm not sure why. If it isn't, then it's a weird coincidence among California's accountant community.
Half of Dan's responsibility when we're getting our taxes prepared is preventing me from screaming in the accountant's face, "Hurry up! Can you type faster? The next field should say 'married'... keep going!" I hate inefficiency in all its forms, and some of the mouth-breathers we've worked with type with two fingers and shuffle through onscreen forms as if they've never seen them before:
1. Accountant silently, slowly reads instructions for field.
2. Accountant starts to say, "Okay, what they need here is... wait, let me see.."
3. Accountant leaves onscreen form to look at another form in a different section.
4. Accountant shuffles last year's return.
5. Accountant moves back to original onscreen form.
6. Accountant says in slow motion, "Okay, what is your name?"
7. Accountant incorrectly types in name I've repeated for the third time.
8. Accountant corrects name by deleting field, asking name again, and retyping.
9. Accountant decides to take a break.
10. Accountant repeats this process over the following five hours.
It has crossed my mind that some firms may train their CPAs to go slow to keep the stress levels down, so the pressure of tax season doesn't erupt in USPS-style bloodshed. I seriously want to tell them to move and let me fill in the data, because I'm there for their accounting skills... not their chicken-pecking kindergarten typing!
Long story short: Tax preparations are due tomorrow, and we need to call our accountant to make sure ours has been filed.
