I’ve had the folder with all my tax documentation sitting on my desk for months now. I had intended to do them early in January (I’m the guy who hands out the W-2s at my job, so everybody got them about a week into the new year), but when I went to the IRS website to download the 1040 form, they didn’t have the current version up yet, apparently because of the so-called “tax reform” overhaul that had just come through Congress. I also do Julia’s taxes, and she hasn’t brought it up yet, so I haven’t had that fire lit under me (recently the podcasts have been a huge time burden, which undermines the Saturday afternoon I would otherwise need for doing all the taxes).
As a measure of my incipient bourgeoisie status, there’s several new and exciting tax issues I’ll have to research and work into the tax documentation. First, I now have a Health Savings Account, with some exciting ramifications for deductions. Second, I have a personal stock portfolio, which means I may have to worry about Profit and Loss calculations.
Next year I guess we’ll have to worry about how the tax overhaul affects various mortgage deductions. It doesn’t look good so far, but I guess as a liberal I should want to pay more taxes? I just wish those taxes weren’t going toward dumb things.