Life with Mom
—-This is a story of a life shared with Mom after her diagnosis of Alzheimer’s Disease.—
The process for filing income taxes didn’t used to last a the whole season, but the last 2 years have been slightly more nightmarish than normal.
The reason: I’m now responsible for processing my own income taxes.
My mother always did my taxes, and did “ours” when Brian and I got married. She always enjoyed these complicated things. She had a remarkable ability to make sense of government, legal, and baking language. These are things that I’ve always struggled with. So, when she told me the year before last that she wanted me to watch her whip up our financial profile on Turbo Tax, I wondered why. She was prepping me to take over this terrifying and horrible task. She no longer trusted her abilities, and didn’t want to be responsible for such an important and necessary task.
So, lucky for me, my friend, Jill, who’s way smarter than me, is also a whiz at these things. She sat me down last year with Turbo Tax and some Tylenol. I did end up filing last year, but not without her constant supervision and answering all of my childish questions. (She’s a teacher, so she never let on that I must have reminded her of her first graders when she was a student teacher).
So, I made an appointment with Jill to come over yesterday to guide me. We had dueling lap tops set up. She did her taxes while holding my hand as I did mine. The thought occurred to me that I would have rather been in a dentist chair having a root canal without Novocaine.
Things did go relatively smoothly, though, because of my helper, but I can’t find my W2’s. Turbo tax keeps gently reminding me that I need them. So, today, I’m off to search for them.
I have until April 15th, right?
Merganser's Crossing 
Diane,I have one word for you – Accountant! I too might as well be trying to read Chinese when I look at a tax form! Good luck with the W2’s!
Advise well taken, Ann. I may start now looking for next year!
I am sorry that you have such a nightmare to cope with, but luckily you have support. Just an FYI, I used to use Turbo Tax, and then switched to H & R Block. They looked back 3 years free for me, and found out that I had an additional $7,000 coming to me. So I decided to stay with them. Ma F
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Wow, Mama F.! This is good info. Thanks for letting me know.
What Ann said.
Getting stuff together for accountant – $0. Gas to get to accountant – $3.00 Accountant’s fee – $100. Leaving it to someone else – priceless.
What you and Ann said, Rachel. You have made a good point.
Thanks (not) for the reminder. Yuk!
Well, thank you for the compliments. You did very well. You know I would rather do taxes for a hundred people than get a root canal with novacaine!!!
Trust me friend, it is worth every penny of the $150.00 to have the accountant doing the taxes and needing the Tylenol!
God bless.
Glynny