Despite being confused, intimidated, and totally clueless, I sat down (okay, flung myself across my bed with my laptop) to do my taxes last night.
I discovered that, like a lot of financial tasks that come bundled with scary baggage, it's actually not all that hard. The only way in which my parents claiming me as a dependent affected the return is that it made me automatically ineligible for the Earned Income Credit (for which I believe I am ineligible anyway) and meant that I couldn't claim education expenses (which I couldn't have done anyway: my parents paid them). As HC very helpfully commented, I still qualified for the standard deduction on the basis of earned income. There were some complications because I spent half the year as a student (in a place that's not here) and half the year (less, actually) as a full-time employee, but the complications only involved frustration, not financial ruin.
The bottom line is that I filed for free without having to do any math and now I get money back (kind of a lot, actually: $701, total). And it's done. And I'm relieved. The real bottom line is that I, like, I think, many others, build things up in my head to be harder and scarier than they are, and just doing them often reveals that they are no big deal.
Friday, January 26, 2007
The IRS Man Goeth
Posted by English Major at 12:22 PM
Labels: financial tools, taxes
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4 comments:
Yep, I think taxes are pretty simple except for extraordinarily complicated situations. Heck, I once had to file in CA, PA, and MA all in the same year -- it took me about 10 hours total worth of work. Not a big deal.
I have friends who are much older than you whose parents do their taxes because they're "no good a math". I try to explain that a calculator can be used for any math -- taxes are all about organization, logic, and reading comprehension.
So you had all the info on that trust stuff? Or just ignored it?
moom, I talked to my mother, who said that I didn't need to worry about it--my name's on there as a beneficiary, but I don't technically own anything, so I'm okay.
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