One of the benefits of becoming friends with the person who helps me do my taxes is that the stress I have in those appointments is usually not as bad because I’m distracted by our catch-up. And I am very grateful that I also have a tax person who understands why this is so stressful for me and tries to make things not as scary.
I was lucky in 2020 because since I do my taxes as early as possible, I did them before things shut down and I was in person at the office and it was just like all the other appointments I was used to in the past. And last year, I had my first time doing a virtual appointment but since it was with the same person at the same office, things were pretty close to what I was used to. I did have to get my paperwork submitted earlier than normal because of the virtual process, but because I have done this type of paperwork before, it was fine.
And just like so much in the world in the past 2 years, things continue to not really be back to the old normal. The office where I had been getting my taxes done closed down. The owner retired and we got an email saying that the people who we had been working with would be reaching out to us directly to let us know our options. Fortunately for me, I found out that I was going to be able to have the same person because she was going into business on her own! I emailed her immediately to tell her how grateful I was for that and to set up my appointment for my taxes.
It was another virtual appointment so I missed out on a lot of the social time that I like, but we did still get a little bit of time to be silly and not just talk about my taxes. And she only had a few questions about what I put on my forms (there are some things I’m not always sure about and she has a section where I can list them so we can go over each one). But my guesses for a lot of what I put down in the questionable section were right so it was easy enough for her to plug in all the information and get my taxes figured out quickly.
I wasn’t sure how I would do this time since I had the condo purchase to put on there and my estimated taxes weren’t going to be as accurate as before since they were based on my 2020 income which was significantly less than my 2021 income. I overpaid my estimated taxes to hopefully balance things out. And I did ok in the end. I owe money for my state return (which is expected since I don’t have estimated taxes for state) and I am getting back money on my federal return. I will be getting more money back than I owe, so that is nice. I know I’m not necessarily getting money back since this is my money I put into things, but it’s better to get something back from what I overpaid than to owe money that I didn’t pay.
I have no clue if by next year things will be a bit more normal and I’ll be going in for my taxes in person. It won’t be at the office I used to go to, but being in person would be nice since it’s been a long time with virtual appointments for so many things.
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