Peopled Out, Iceberged In

Because I'm a gregarious loner, I like a lot of downtime, away from the maddings. This week was a rough one, an ongoing intense quality and quantity to human exposure for me. Drop ins. Don't like them. But I foolishly hung out the tax services shingle and I figure all told, with the drops and convos about life stories and Uncle Ned, great fellah you should have met him, I'm making about $5.00 an hour if I factor in the social aspect. Big Mistake.

I'm very fussy as to friends. Loads of acquaintances but friends I can count on one hand. So I have to wear my nice for these tax clients and engage with them reluctantly but smilily. I am sensitive to social cues but most people are not, I find. I say I'm sorry but I'm busy but I imagine they think that applies to others and not them as they ramble on about Auntie Mildred and Grandfather Jack and just who are in these photos around my living room.

Meanwhile some ancient ice has been hanging around outside my front door. Pictures, yes. And this is after a couple of weeks as the weather has been glorious and most of the ice has melted, it covered the bay at one point and there were mini-mountains bobbing along.

I can't imagine what this gigantic ice melt has done to the glaciers of Greenland and to the planet's health. And they are here far too soon this year. And apparently are only the precursors of more yet to come.

Avast

There are some that are fearful of the vast quantities of time that can open up at one's feet and suck you in to nameless dreads and freefloating anxieties when the day job is no longer there to fill the vacuum. I know a few.

As I am wrapping up my own day job I begin to see this. Part of me is excited at not being so constricted by this career that spreads its ooze more times than I care to admit into my nights. Plus there are vast swathes of time where I see clients, talk to them, soothe them, answer questions throughout the year, plan with them, etc. Da Schmooze in other words. Part of any job be it MacDonald's or Google or Bill Gates is the ability to schmooze. It takes up a lot of time. For me anyway. Usually there's an average of one business email a day througout the year, then software updates, professional associations, webinars, continuous learning as tax regulations change and permutate.

I have to be wary of this final announcement to quit the business. I gently severed some clients last year, ones that were at a major geographical distance or their businesses were expanding rapidly but then, guess what? Some of them didn't settle my final billing to them. In spite of repeated requests. Bummer, yeah? So this year I am withholding this announcement from the balance of my clients until I'm paid. There's nowt as queer as folks, even clients who were friends tell me they'll pay me once they have the funds but meanwhile could I help their new accountant in the transition. What do you think? Put further work into the dead horse or walk away with my precious time?

I admit to feeling exhilaration at the idea of my life opening up afresh without the constant rattle of accounting in the background. I haven't knitted in ages. Or read a book in a day. Or visited my Writer's Cabin. Or meandered around my village in the afternoon. Or edited novels. Or work on the new play. Or....

I am ready. Avast!

Endings and Beginnings

This is my very last tax season. There. I've said it. Right out loud. I just need to make the announcement to clients now and not be persuaded to NOT hang up the calculator. Like last year. I truly, truly am finished with it all. I found this nearly over season (still quite a few boxes and files kicking around my office) extraordinarily taxing. And do pardon the pun. I'm not smiling. It's not funny. To me at least.

A huge negative was in the past years I would add up your 250 medical receipts, for example, and have my mind somewhere in my next book. Or play. But not this year. It required every last bit of my mental energy to add those prednisone scripts and chiropractic chits. I tried meditation to graciously accept the work, I tried gratitude exercises for Gaia's munificence. NONE of it worked. I even burned karmic incense (direct from Tibet!!) to restore my chi to balance with the universe. The smoke fled out my door, leaving me gritting my teeth.

It is over, I am done.

I sent out a song to my lovely young actress to rehearse for my new play tonight.

This brings me joy, excitement and anticipation.

Something that's been hugely lacking in my life through this past trying month 2013.

And what, pray tell, is more important than bliss?

Best Laid Plans

Sweet Maude.

I know I am the middle of tax season when something untoward and unexpectd happens to yank my chain and wrestle me to the ground.

Beware all ye who read here of the most atrocious computer virus EVAH to attack without provocation. Known to those in the know of such things as "Internet Security 2012", it looks exactly like Microsoft Security Anti-Virus down to the logo. Sorry can't link to the details as I am on my netbook very far from home having entrusted my laptop to the wunderkind who has saved my techie-arse many times before.

This may take a while, he tells me, grave of face, sad of demeanour, we would have to do a full scan once we remove it, it is one of the most insidious ones yet.

You don't have to push a button for this one. This installed itself when I had my back turned on the screen while talking on the phone. I shut down right away and fingers crossed I got away with it before it took charge of my bank account, etc. -

Murphy's Law # 89: The busier I am the behinder I get.

Tales from the Tax Trenches Part Three

She's whispering so low I can barely hear her.

"Sheila," I say firmly,"You'll have to speak up."

"Oh God," she says,"The students outside my door will hear me!"

"What's going on?" I ask her, puzzled, I haven't heard from her in nearly five years and I don't chase my clients, too much energy wasted.

"Four years!" she's nearly crying now, "Four years I haven't filed!".

"Do you want to meet with me?" I offer politely,"I'll be in your neighbourhood tomorrow."

"Oh no, not here," she says, an edge of desperation in her voice, "But there's a coffee shop around the corner from the school, can we meet there?"

And we do. She keeps hiding her face from the many students that are coming and going with coffees and teas. Discreetly, she passes her files to me under the table and I slide them surreptitiously into a big black bag I carry for such a purpose.

Sheila is a responsible, caring, middle-aged high school principal.

With four years of unfiled taxes.

For other such tales see:

Tales from the Tax Trenches Part One
Tales from the Tax Trenches Part Two

Tales from the Tax Trenches Part Two

Interesting how specialties happen. You’d think tax accountant is descriptive unto itself; that there would be no specialties as a sub-header. But I have a speciality. And the speciality is back taxes. As in people who haven’t filed taxes in years and years.

I thought I’d seen the worst when someone came to me with twenty-five years of unfiled taxes but there was even a tardier one to follow.

How do they get away with it? You ask.

Living under the radar is how. Taking jobs that don’t require an SIN (nixers, we called them back home). Living a life that does not entail having a mortgage, for to have a mortgage you have to produce your tax returns. Part of the black economy. Living a life of fear, wondering when Revenue Canada is going to catch up with you. Not telling a partner of your exiled from civilization status.

The situation starts with a couple of years of unfiled returns. Another year or so and the whole backlog become too overwhelming, too almighty a task to deal with. You find a large old trunk, or label a hefty garbage bag and throw all the bits of paper in there. Something at the back of your mind tells you it would be totally criminal to throw all the paperwork away. So you tote around this millstone, this growing pile of papers on every house-move you make. Until finally a partner says something like, isn’t it time we got married or bought a house together? And slowly but surely the house of cards, represented by the trunk of papers, the enormous garbage bag of unresolved issues, tumble out on to the floor. So the partner shops around for someone who can handle this frightening and mountainous mess. They call me.

And I can negotiate with Revenue Canada, in the case of the twenty five year unfiled back taxes, as Revenue Canada had not been chasing him, I was able to settle on filing his last fifteen years and the other ten were ‘forgiven’ as part of voluntary disclosure.

Last year I had a thirty-year case the biggest so far. As Revenue Canada had been unsuccessfully trying to find her, they wanted every year filed. There was no forgiveness. So I complete the task as I always do anyway, a year’s return at a time.

Inevitably, and this always comes as a shock, my clients have overpaid their taxes or not claimed any credits or GST rebates and are owed tax refunds plus accrued interest at the end of all the paperwork.

But more than that, the look of relief and freedom on their faces as I have them sign all the completed returns makes my job so worthwhile. Out of the darkness and living in the sunshine. Finally. After so many years of hiding. From themselves.
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P.S. 150 POSTS! YAY ME!
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TALES FROM THE TAX TRENCHES, PART ONE

I’m glad I’m anonymous here. It lets me write a lot more truth than if I was public. And that’s a good thing for me as one of my hats is tax accountant and sometimes I need to vent or enlighten or tell secrets. Secrets cannot be withheld from your tax accountant. She knows everything, some of it amusing, some of it very sad, some of it heart warming and some of it downright bad. Trust me. And what I write here is in no way a judgement, it is merely about the foibles of human nature which are of endless fascination to me.

Like, did you know?

· The poorest of my clients give the most to charity.
· Some of my really, really wealthy clients don’t give a dime or consider themselves heroes for throwing a C-bill at the Breast Cancer Campaign (and don’t get me started on that particular ‘charity’!).
· The most intelligent fall for the get rich quick schemes, i.e. The Donald and his come hithers to get you rich quick on real estate schemes, or buying Costa Rica rentals. None of them work. Trust me. Only The Donald and his ilk get rich off you, you poor sucker.
· One client, a financial planner, spends $15,000 a year on underwear. She is not a looker even by a huge stretch of the imagination. Every year, she asks me to write the expense off. I say to her, she’d have to be a model, hooker, lap-dancer or stage artist and declaring her earnings as such to get to write it off. She thinks I’m being too conservative.
· Some go through a fortune of inheritances from hard-scrimping, depression-defying parents in their dreams of doubling the money by being newborn businessmen or women. The first purchase from the estate funds is inevitably a hugely expensive, enormous leather briefcase. I say wealth does not have a magic wand to make you what you were never before, a successful business person. Put a safety net around the money and let it happily click over at a conservative 4% in guaranteed investment certificates. They never listen as they walk off hefting the shiny dream-filled briefcase.
· Some lose all their earnings on the stock market. I tell them devote 5 hours minimum a day to monitoring your investments if you are going to follow that route. None are willing to spend that kind of time but are willing to throw away a fortune on a ‘hot tip.’
· Some are professional gamblers, though the new term now is ‘gaming’ and ‘arbitrage’. Professions for some. Though all lose, lose and lose. Trust me. I get tired of crunching the losses.
· Many elderly parents keep throwing money at their foolish adult children who are trying to make silk purses out of sows’ ears in real estate and fancy shops. Lose, lose and lose.
· One client had a huge windfall and spent it all on a Lamborghini and the following year couldn’t afford the insurance and then lost his business through neglect.
· Very few would-be entrepreneurs have the foresight to put together a business plan even with my suggestions and assistance. They inevitably fail in their new venture.
· The ones who do put together a plan are nearly always successful. These are the people who sign all their own cheques and track their expenses carefully against the business plan on a weekly basis and adjust and tack as the economic wind shifts direction.
· Old men who marry young women - and old women who marry young men - pay and pay and pay again. Each and every one says, “Ah, but you don’t know. This time it’s different”. No, it’s not. You will lose half your hard earned property and half your hard earned cash. And pre-nups never kill true romance. And if they do, walk and consider yourself lucky!
· I often have to chase the wealthy to settle my account.
· The poorest of my clients pay me the fastest.

Stick to the Knitting

I've posted before about the book of short stories at the publisher. Today, the really, really good editor lets me know in no uncertain terms that I need to perform some massive re-writes and tightening and fact checking on some key scenes.

As I'm in the middle of tax season, I laid my head on my keyboard for a while and tried to knock myself unconscious.

I raised my head to find an email from my daughter with the above cartoon which seems to speak to me.

There is no room for multi-tasking if you want to be a writer.

Or knitter.

Or tax accountant.




PS (added later).
I was saving this award from Jenny at South Belfast Diary for a down day, so here it is. Boy, do I need cheering up today! Thanks, Jenny.