April 15th--NHL Playoffs Start!

I already have my tax refunds. So today is no day of anguish for me.

This year I managed to avoid putting off the task.

And I discovered (or perhaps it is new) that I didn't need to fill out one form for interest income since interest income is so pathetically low these days, given the rates so low as to be virtually identical to zero percent.

So I did not send in that form--and nobody wrote to complain! Woo hoo!

Next year will be a pain, I assume, with my first child in college. I have to figure out the tax implications of several means of funding that.

Is it too much to hope that what I learn next year will still be valid when my youngest goes to college?

I still don't use any type of tax preparation help. It seems outrageous that a college-educated blogger should need to hire a person or buy software to do what should be a straightforward task--determine the tax I owe.

And let me thank the state and federal governments for forcing me to take a step back this tax season.

The previous couple years I was able to use online forms that I could type data into and then print out nice and neat.

This year, I could not find anything but static forms to print and fill out by hand. Why did they do this?

I guess I should be grateful that filling out forms by hand and mailing them in isn't illegal yet.

Anyway, I'll have to start work on next year this summer by making sure I know what I need to save and document for whatever tax angles there are for payments to the university starting in the fall.

Because if I can't figure this out, I really should just stock up on ammo and canned food, and take to the hills.

So tonight I'll be watching hockey without being distracted by efforts to find Form 1040QWERTY during intermissions.

UPDATE: A late update that may be related to lack of forms that take input for printing. The IRS on their own initiative funneled money away from taxpayer assistance programs. Tip to Instapundit.