Hello I.R.S.

April 20, 2010

I haven't written since tax day, and to be quite honest, I think I have a touch of PTSD from the whole experience. This was our first year as a profitable business, and let me tell you, it really brings things to the next level of complication.

Q. Do you know what else tends to up the complication factor?

A. When last year's accountant was an absolute moron who had very little respect for the rules of Uncle Sam.

As much as I salivate at the thought of free health care, jail simply isn't the place for me. I suck at weight lifting--I'm a total T-Rex. You know, explosive strength in the legs, but not so much in the upper quadrants.

Does anyone play Scrabble in prison? I suppose that could work.

Anyhoo, last year's accountant--whose last name was remarkably close to the technical word meaning butt hole--made approximately fourteen-thousand mistakes on our 2008 return, which means this year's return required somewhere in the ballpark of one-million corrections.

It never failed, my accountant would catch me on my cell phone while I was sweating bullets in the bathing suit section at TJ Maxx, He'd be like, "Amy. Did you take a five or a seven year depreciation on Jared's tables last year?"

And I was all, "Uhhhhhhhh??????? Sevvvvvvvven?"

"Seven? Why'd you opt for seven?"

And I'd throw a one-piece on the floor and be like, "I don't know! I'm lying! I'm LYING CHRIS! What the hell is depreciation?"

Then he'd launch into a twenty-minute snore fest about tax law. Finally I'd cut him off by saying something intelligent like, "Do I have enough money to buy this bathing suit or not, Chris? It's fifteen dollars and the tag says it'll hide my trouble spots."

To which he'd say something along the lines of, "I don't understand the question."

Well I didn't understand his question in the first place. Couldn't he have asked something more reasonable, like "Hi Amy. Have you ever thought about reducing your charitable contributions so you can buy your son new pants? He looks ridiculous."

I can work with a question like that, I really can.

And so it went.