The Taxman Cometh...

but the taxman didn't taketh. I have procrastinated with the taxes just about every year, but I think this is the longest I went before doing them.  I finally broke down and did them on the 14th.

It's not that they're hard to do, it's just such a chore. Especially when you don't know what's in store at the end.   Do we owe or do we get? Thankfully, this year we had a surprise and are getting a refund. Last year we broke even because we had the energy credit from the turbine, but since our deductions went with the standard this year, no energy credit could be applied. It rolled over to next year.

I think we got a refund two years ago and that was a surprise but it was a smaller refund than this year's is.    We are only getting back the money the government withheld from one of our income accounts, so it's nothing to get excited about since it was our money in the first place.  They just took care of it for a year.  Nice of them, no?

At least now I can sit back and relax and not have to worry about doing taxes for another year. There was some drama attached to them, however.    Nothing comes easy for us.  I did them online and when I was all finished I was asked how I wanted to pay for them. Say what?! They were supposed to be free. I started free and at the end I was asked to fork over almost $53. At that point you have two choices: you either pay via credit card (or have it deducted from any refund) or you can back out and do it all over again at a different site or just use the same site but don't use your passwords from the previous year.  

Since I wasn't about to sit through another session with a different company (especially after having waited this long to finally do them), I took the easy way and just paid via credit card, and when it was all finished I quickly sent an e-mail to let them know how unhappy I was with their tactics. $50? Please. That's like bait and switch.  We went with the standard deduction and I only filed federal and not state, so at the very most it could have been $20 like I paid last year. But $50 blew my mind way into next week.  I'm still quite upset by that whole deal.  And I'm afraid they haven't heard the end of me yet either.

To make a long story short, they supposedly are going to refund my card. But I have to follow up and make sure they don't pull another fast one.    Because that loud noise you will hear is me hitting the ceiling (and a few other things)...once again.