Tax time

Funny how two perfectly innocent words can become disurbing — even downright sinister — when you put them together. No, I’m not talking about “anal” and “probe” but about “tax” and “time,” though there certainly are some similarities.

This year shouldn’t have been that bad — last year we had the selling and buying of a home to contend with, yielding a tax return roughly the size of a New York City phone book. But the good folks at TurboTax, who I almost revered after the first time I used it, have “improved” the product year after year until it’s almost as easy and pleasurable as the IRS itself.

It transfers the information from the previous year’s return, but then makes it very difficult to kill off the stuff that doesn’t apply anymore — like charities you gave to last year, but not this year. They have an add/delete feature on most other lists, but not this one. If you put “0″ in for the amount, it kicks it back as an error. Very annoying.

On the other hand, I did most of our return in bits and pieces after we got the kids to sleep every night, when I was barely conscious myself, It’s entirely possible that I slept through that part.