I FILLED OUT MY INCOME TAX FOR THE LAST TIME

     Yes, old Red, the last of the great do it yourselfers, has filled out income tax forms for the last time! Now before some misread this as I don't have to file income tax! No such luck.

    I have filled out income tax forms since 1959. It was a bit of a surprise for a 19 year old to discover he had to file an income tax form. So for for 59 years I have faithfully and honestly filled out my tax forms. 

    Why am I quitting? I'll blame it on the Micro Manager. Much of our reporting has to go together and the Micro manager is not willing to go through the hassle anymore.

    I find that the forms get more convoluted every year. The government tries to satisfy many groups that lobby for breaks. So there are breaks for music  lessons, bus travel, gym fees...you got it . Everybody gets a break...even seniors.

   And that brings me to my point. Here's a challenge. Here senior couples, where only one gets a pension, can split some pension income so that they both can take advantage of a break and claim the maximum for non refundable tax credits. Okay, I won't complain about a benefit as it saves us $150.00.

    Now here's the problem and I get a headache trying to write about this. The guy withe the pension transfers $2000.00 to the spouse without the pension. Pension guy's income is $2000.00 less. Pensionless guy must add $2000.00 to their income. After that, pension guy must subtract the tax he would have been paying on the $2000.00 he's giving away and pensionless guy must add the tax to their return. It's a simple switch. 

    Now you can guess the tax people could spoil this by inventing a form that is impossibly  complicated. You have to read it a 100 times and each time the Micro Manager and I disagree because it is written in a very awkward way.

   I know , accountants have to do their job and make a form that will do the job.

   So with such convoluted forms , I'm not that unhappy to give up my job filling in my tax return.

    Now I just have to look for an accountant that I like.

    ...and I'll bet there's no prize(break) for filling out tax forms for 59 years.

Last Day of Being Seventy Seven

   Yes, that's right folks. Today is the last timeI I'll ever ever 77 years old.

    What did I do on this or less day in my life? I made up my persona directive.

   Recently my daughter's mother in law went in for surgery and it didn't turn out well. Her husband is an only child and when his mother became incapacitated, they began looking, 
 for those important papers.

   That's when my daughter made the frantic request as to whether I had personal direction forms and if so where are they.

   Now my record on personal directive forms is rather pathetic.  About 15 years ago I'd heard of personal directives but didn't have the foggiest idea of their importance and of course like a typical male I did nothing about them.. About 10 years ago I got a little more serious about the issue. About 5 years ago I actually filled out forms but didn't get  them witnessed.

   So with my daughter's frantic plea , it was time to d something about it.aed out our province has a program in place to standardize personal directives.also learned ed that the all important form was only to appoint someone to be my agent if I became  . I was giving someone the legal status to make health and care decisions for me. I also learned the I would fill out another form with my doctor detailing my wishes for care when my quality of life deteriorates.

   The province also will set up an advisor to help you fill out the forms. The advisor sees thaat the forms are filled out correctly. She/he witnesses your signature and makes the necessary copies for you. That' s what we did today.

      So all in all, my last day of being 77was a rather important one.

DEMON INCOME TAX

      I've always filled out my own income tax returns. My income tax situation is very simple and straightforward. Yes, there are very poorly expressed sections that cause me problems. One is what they call split income pension. It's straightforward. I transfer some of my pension income to my wife. Now when the tax guys get in on writing the form it suddenly gets complicated. 
they don't use the best of terms. Pension transferee??? Who's that?  They do make a mess of the form. I fool them. I get it.

     This year they went one too far so I have to rant.

     I always have paid my income tax with a check. After I finished my tax form I noticed that I'm not allowed to pay by check anymore. They offer 4 options. I don't do online banking. Skip that one. I'm not setting up a debit account. I don't want somebody having access to my account. The only option left was to get a remittance voucher.

     Now you have to order a remittance voucher online or by phone. The Micro manager tried the phone and it didn't make sense. 

     If I set up an account I could order the vouchers online. So I set up an account and ordered. It would take two weeks.

   Now there was no notice about this change. I finished my return Mar. 27 so if the mail works I get the voucher before April 30 which is the deadline. Some people may finish their return April 25. How are they ever going to get a voucher?

    So I am very angry with the tax department for not advertising that checks could not be used this year.

    The micro manager called some officials and gave them the gears but they would not budge on the way things were set up.

     There's a saying don't argue with the taxman. It was impossible in this case.

#*~`^\< Income Tax

   I'm a stubborn old coot and I insist on always doing my income tax on my own.

    My income tax is not complicated so it's doable. There are a couple of curves . I can split some things to gain some advantages. This is where the bus went in the ditch. If you split things you have to file a special form with all the details of the split. I have never found a more convoluted form than this one. There are five steps and they are weird.

   Now the routine around our place is that I fill out the tax forms and my manager checks them. Now I'm not perfect so I make the odd mistake. So when my manager got to the form to split things she thought it was wrong and began to change things. She got really frustrated and called me. Since I was looking at a form she was filling out I was  confused for a while. Then for the next 4 steps we stumbled and yes words flew and got louder. After two hours of reading and rereading, we found that my first attempt was the right one. Worse than that we then discovered that there was no need to split that part of income. Luckily it didn't matter if we did split or not split. That meant that we didn't have to do the whole process over again.

    So we sat down and wrote a letter to ourselves that next year it wouldn't be necessary to do the splitting. So next year we will find the letter in the file and it will tell us what to do.

   So once again the income tax is done without too much damage to the premises, bodies or minds.