We were up until 3am this morning, even with work only a few hours after that. I was working, as usual, and Berta was doing taxes.
I’ve done our taxes using H&R Block’s TaxCut software for the past three years. Strangely, it’s something I kind of enjoy. We haven’t had any problems with it, and we were going to use it again this year except we figured that with the sale of the house and the change in jobs and the liquidation in some of our stock assets to pay for things, maybe we ought to have someone professional do it.
But instead of following through with that plan, I got shipped off to LA for work, and then we had Easter together, and then Berta got shipped off to Atlanta for work, and there just wasn’t enough time to schedule an appointment with a tax consultant, much less actually attend that appointment. So we hit up TaxCut online to do our taxes again.
Berta had gathered all of our tax papers and knew where to find them, which is usually my barrier to doing taxes efficiently. Plus I still had work to do. As a result, she spent a good deal of time last night filling out the forms online. We went to bed very late, and the taxes still aren’t done.
This morning, with the wind howling all night making it difficult to sleep anyway, the power went out just before the alarm went off. Thankfully, I noticed this, since I wasn’t sleeping anyway. Outside, the wind was blowing something fierce. 40+ MPH winds, says the news. And the rain. And snow?
With the kids on a delay, I tried to call Nana to tell her to stay home for a while, but she had already left. Berta stayed in bed late because of her late evening. I’m still walking around like a zombie from lack of sleep. I went out in the cold in my PJs to re-install the car seat I removed from Berta’s car so I could fit the new treadmill inside.
Berta finally got ready and took our local tax form (on which we always owe nothing, always mail late, and always end up paying penalties on nothing) to the mailbox, returning with a pile of mail from the last few days. She tossed it on the floor in the foyer.
Abby and Berta scooted out the door to go to school/work.
I sifted through the pile of mail. A magazine. A ton of catalogs. Some bills. A letter from the IRS.
“That’s odd. We didn’t even file our taxes yet,” I thought.
So I opened it. Inside, “Please respond by May 9. You owe $25,000 in taxes and late penalties from income you failed to report in 2005.” Huh?
I looked over the document. Apparently, there were two securities sold for profit in 2005. One was some stock options that Berta had through work. The options sold at a price of $36,000, but because she had to buy them at a high price, we only made $14,000 from the sale. This was the amount we reported to the IRS, as required. The form itself says that nobody is required to report the expense of purchasing the stock, so I think that’s fine. But that’s not what worries me.
The second security we sold is under my SSN. It is profit in the amount of $38,000 from a company called “Pershing, LLC.” I’ve never heard of Pershing. The only stock I own is a single share of Pixar (in Abby’s name) and my 401k. I certainly didn’t earn $38k from selling off my 401k.
I keep thinking that I must be missing something. Maybe I did make that money. But I think I would know if I suddenly had $38k available to use.
Last year when we bought the house we liquidated a lot of stuff, as I said. But that was 2006, not 2005. I don’t know what we could have done in 2005 that would even lead to that, and I don’t know what this Pershing company is. This has to be some kind of mistake. Maybe they reported the wrong year?
As a result of these non-reported incomes, we end up owing many that looks like a whole person’s yearly salary. This can’t be possible. If we were making that much money, we’d know it. If we were making that much money, we wouldn’t be rushing around at 3am trying to assemble this year’s tax documents; we’d certainly be paying someone to do it for us. Something is definitely wrong.
I’ve got so much work to do this week; I can’t be distracted thinking about a $25,000 debt to the government. But here I am. Fantastic.
