{"id":57,"date":"2009-02-07T19:53:12","date_gmt":"2009-02-08T01:53:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dennissherman.com\/dennis\/?p=57"},"modified":"2009-02-07T19:55:26","modified_gmt":"2009-02-08T01:55:26","slug":"2008-income-taxes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/dennissherman.com\/dennis\/2009\/02\/2008-income-taxes\/","title":{"rendered":"2008 Income Taxes"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve got the first draft of our 2008 US income taxes done. I think this is as early as I’ve ever done it, and it seemed easier than it has been in the past. I looked at the systems I’ve got in place, and see some things I’ve done over the years that add up to making it easier.<\/p>\n

First, I track finances in Quicken, and file taxes with TurboTax. They interact well together (they should, both coming from Intuit<\/a>), and over the years I’ve adjusted how I have Quicken configured to make my life as easy as possible.\u00a0 TurboTax gets easier and easier to use, too.<\/p>\n

Second, I know what kinds of things we do that have tax impact, and I make notes and collect receipts throughout the year. I’ve got a folder labeled “Taxes 2008” that had relevant receipts and notes dropped in it all year long. I’ve already got “Taxes 2009” started.<\/p>\n

And third, I’ve learned what parts of the tax forms I really can ignore, knowing that they aren’t going to have an impact on us.\u00a0 I don’t bother adding medical expenses, for example, because I know they aren’t going to come close to the level needed to be able to deduct them.<\/p>\n

Nothing earth shaking, but having reliable systems in place and using them makes it all easier in the end.<\/p>\n

Now if only we’d have some meaningful tax reform from Congress, that didn’t amount to letting the fat cats pay less.\u00a0 My suggestion: require all members of Congress to file their own taxes, by hand, on paper, with no electronic support other than a calculator.\u00a0 No accountants or consultants permitted.\u00a0 And with a hard deadline a month earlier than the rest of us. Everything else would sort itself out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve got the first draft of our 2008 US income taxes done. I think this is as early as I’ve ever done it, and it seemed easier than it has been in the past. I looked at the systems I’ve got in place, and see some things I’ve done over the years that add up […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/dennissherman.com\/dennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/dennissherman.com\/dennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/dennissherman.com\/dennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dennissherman.com\/dennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dennissherman.com\/dennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/dennissherman.com\/dennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59,"href":"http:\/\/dennissherman.com\/dennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57\/revisions\/59"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/dennissherman.com\/dennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dennissherman.com\/dennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dennissherman.com\/dennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}