So I'm within sight of finishing up my 2009 taxes.
Yep. 2009.
Right now it's less than a month until 2011. Almost Christmas. I say that in case some of you don't have a smartphone yet. Consider it a public service. Do they still make wall calendars? The ones without the naked women on them?
Barb is getting restless. "Almost done yet???????", she asks. Over and over with the same tone of voice. Frazzled. And frustrated. Well babe, I got a word for you, too. If your filing system wasn't so bizarre and haphazard I would have been done three fortnights ago. I misjudged the depth of your obtuseness. After 31 years together, I still screwed that one up. Should know better by now, but a guy can hope can't he? And speaking of hope, is there a chance he will get laid someday soon even though he is constantly mumbling critical thoughts about that crap you call organization?
My accountant has turned color.... literally. Yea, like those aliens you see in "B" movies. She has quit calling three times a day to remind me that I'm a few months late in turning my stuff in and is instead stalking the grocery store aisles, glaring at me with those freakish orange eyes that are surrounded by a shimmering blue-green body. I'm sorry I made you turn into a different color than the rest of us, but would you mind moving yourself over to inside the bank instead? I hardly visit there anymore (we have no money), and people are no longer shocked by what they see banks doing these days. You'll not look like such a misfit, and maybe by seeing you in such stark contrast to an irascible banker you'll regain your honor among the community that I helped you lose.
Which brings us back to the question I originally asked. Have you looked at store receipts lately? I hadn't. Just stuffed them in my pocket and put them in the tax file for later. My mistake. Because now I need to account for what we purchased for our business. And the receipt says I spent $79.95 to buy a "Psf bhrd trb".
I need a translator. Does anyone out there speak Merchant Receipt? Admittedly, I was always lousy at foreign languages but this specialized terminology really has me stumped. I have a bunch of receipts with similar looking stuff on them. I need my taxes done. But I need a Merchant Receipt linguist to help me finish the job. Hopefully one of you linguistic angels live in a place like Lake Oswego, near Portland, Oregon. I hear that when someone dials 911 from Lake Oswego, the call automatically gets routed to Nordstroms. Sounds like there must be more than a few Merchant Receipt linguists in a place like that. Can you be my saviour?
Fortunately, a few stores (very few!) also put the UPC number on the receipt. And how it was paid.
Ahhh. Perhaps, a scent trail. Oops. The credit card statements are equally as cryptic as the store receipt in hand, but the UPC number? Hey, I can look those up on-line! Yipee. Tedious, but doable. And the product is actually described there. Unlike the receipt that mysteriously doesn't have room for a product description but does have room for highlighting three store promotions, how to become "fans" of their social media sites, and where to go to fill out a ten minute survey about how the store is doing - for a dollar off on your next purchase.*
(* Transaction value must exceed 2 billion dollars.)
You may wonder why I'm not getting desperate or despondent over filing my taxes late. My accountant, before she turned color and went bizarr-o, was oh-so serious about this. She said, "The IRS audits late returns more than any other type." Guess what, Numeric Woman. I don't give a rat's ass. Bring it on, Mister Tax Man. We made nothing last year. N-o-t-h-i-n-g. We lost money. Spent a wad on starting Barb's new audiology practice. Spent some on development of my audiology software that I hope to sell. And our investments? While Wall Street made a "miraculous" recovery on our dime, my portfolio is still sitting at about the same spot it was in 1998! So what's the big deal if I get audited? The whole process would be a joke. A farce that rivals the best of Shakespeare. It wouldn't cost me a nickel. Just time and irritation.
I could get dinged for one thing, though. I bought a pencil and didn't classify it as an office expense, as it should be. Put it in the office furniture category instead. Hey, the way things went in 2009 that pencil was the entirety of our capital improvements. And I've been sitting on the sharp end of that danged pencil ever since. If that isn't what characterizes a piece of furniture, I don't know what is. And I'm going to depreciate that bugger out, to the fullest extent of the law. Three years worth of depreciation is in the bag. Maybe our businesses will be showing a profit by then. That would be more than nice.
Just one thing, though, Mister Tax Man. I need your help. Do you know what a "Psf bhrd trb" is? Barb and I may have another deduction there. To add to our loss. Can you be my saviour? Maybe then I'll be able to buy a 2011 calendar with pictures of naked women on it.
P.S. Just realized I should add a disclaimer. The photo atop the post is NOT meant to infer that Apple's receipts are bad. They aren't. They are actually among the easiest to decipher (except for months later when you need to know which generation product that was bought.... grrr). And another thing about the photo: I stole it on-line. Yep. Just like the people who grabbed it from Apple marketing and added a question mark to it. So whoever "owns" this version can sue me if you want, but it will be an exercise in pointlessness. I make no money, make nothing off this blog, and have no assets that a bankruptcy judge wouldn't protect. Someone with nothing to lose is a dangerous person. You can have my pencil, if you must.