April 9, 2007

Tax Time for the Fiscally Confused

It’s April. Tax time. May heaven help us all.

OK, I realize that not everyone is as freaked out about taxes as I am. In fact some people appear to actually enjoy this annual rite of calculating the government’s cut of your worldly possessions – specifically, this would be Certified Public Accountants, IRS employees and lunatics.

But a lot of people who are not direct beneficiaries of America’s annual Fleecing of the Proletariat nevertheless seem to deal with tax time fairly well. They simply gather their courage, a sharp pencil and an envelope full of receipts, assemble the appropriate tax forms and plow in. A few hours later they emerge, a bit gray and shaken perhaps, but grimly cheerful. They lick the envelope, throw on some stamps and rejoin human society to wait for their refunds.

These are the same people who can recite for you, off the top of their heads, their house payment, their property taxes and their cell phone number. In other words, people who are a lot more organized – or at least a lot more aware of their surroundings - than I am.

All of this goes beyond my just being bad with money, a trait for which I am legendary. I’ve been known to get out of a taxi and give my last $10 to a panhandler before I pay the cab fare. When I hire contractors I always get three bids, then I hire the guy with the highest bid and the coolest truck. I often leave a $14 tip on a $6 lunch tab. Paid, of course, from the envelope of lunch money that my wife pins to my shirt every morning before I go of to work.

I think my problem is that any time concepts like “cash flow,” “finance,” or “budget” enter my consciousness, I go into a sort of seizure. My mind goes blank, and if there is any money in my wallet I give it to anyone who happens to be nearby, in exchange for investment advice or candy bars.

Luckily, my wife seems to be immune to my fiscal confusion. Every time I panic over how we could possibly keep our tax receipts and statements organized, she calmly puts a shoe box on the table and says, “Just throw any tax-related stuff in there.” I never do it, but just knowing that the shoe box is there is reassuring.

So how does a fiscally-challenged person like me deal with my disability? Well, as I’m sure you’ve already figured out, I married a woman who has the patience and endurance to take care of me – one who knows how to count change, calculate 15 percent tips and put lunch money in envelopes.

Long before I met my wife, I briefly dated a woman who was an accountant, but it didn’t work out. After our first April together, she joined some sort of religious cult and was last seen with her head shaved, dressed in a bed sheet and playing a tambourine in Central Park. A mutual friend, a psychologist, said she was suffering from PTSD – Post Tax-Cripple Stress Disorder. I feel that, somehow, I may have been partially responsible.

Go figure.

ght © 2007, Michael Ball

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