Taxes, And Other Things That Have To Be Done.

This morning, after a very slow start, Tom and I did the weekly house cleaning. We put it off yesterday so it was waiting to be done. It wasn't bad once we got going. We were finished by noon. This afternoon Tom went outside to finish up a pruning job he started yesterday. I was hoping to get out into the sunshine for a walk, but I wanted to tackle the taxes first. Tom beat me in completing our tasks. As the afternoon waned and a light cloud cover diluted the sun, I toiled away. Why is it that this job gets more complicated every year? I did love the online sales tax calculator. You put in your income and zip code and Wa lah!, out comes your state, county and local sales tax deduction. We don't have many deductions, just the medical, charity and property and sales taxes. We don't have any debt so we don't have and interest deductions. But in order to know if the standard deduction is a better deal than itemizing, I have to calculate both ways. After all of that, the standard beat itemizing by about $400. But I do know more about where our money goes. I had to print out a form from the IRS to claim our energy credit for installing our new furnace and heat pump. That wasn't too complicated, thank goodness. But for some reason Tom didn't have enough withholding out of his pension, so if it wasn't for that energy credit we would have ended up owing a chunk of change, never a good thing. He'll have to make an adjustment. So now it's time to make some dinner and then settle in for the evening. Tomorrow we're planning an urban trek before the Super Bowl. We don't have a horse in that race, but I'll have the game on. Gotta keep up. I guess it would be nice if New Orleans won.