Tax Day

Using a computer program to do taxes means I can send in form 1040PC, the lightweight version of the usual 1040 & associated schedules. However, if I did that, there would only be one small piece of paper to show for all the hours of tracking down receipts & paperwork. I think this is the reasoning behind Macintax's need to generate a lot of paper when printing tax forms. Yes, it prints 1040PC easily but then it also prints an extra copy for my records and a copy of the real 1040 & all these extra worksheets and 1998 tax planning guides & an comparison of how I did compared to the rest of the US...it all ends up being a substantial pile of paper. It makes me feel like I accomplished something.

This meant that printing was going to take a while. I set the printer up to print & went to bed. I wasn't going to wait up for these pages to churn out of the printer.

The next morning (April 15) I went downstairs to collect the finished tax forms...and discovered that the printer was out of ink.

Oops.

I didn't have an extra ink cartridge.

This week was also a big customer visit day. I had a customer visiting from out of the country. We were going to be locked in a conference room all day & had scheduled an evening dinner, as well. When was I going to find a place/time to print my taxes?

Fortunately, Macintax & the electronic version of my return were on the PowerBook. Unfortunately, the network at work is all PC & I knew from other's experience that the chances of me figuring out how to get my PowerBook to talk with the printer at work were very slim. I put in an emergency email to a couple friends asking how their printers were doing. Timo responded first. After spending the day in a conference room with the customers, I sent them to the hotel to change/rest before dinner & I ran to Timo's work to pick up his house key & head to his house to print.

Everything printed, no problem. Now all I had to do was collate, sign & mail the forms.

I drove back to Palo Alto, met the customers for a very nice, very lengthy dinner. It was 10:30 by the time we were done. I headed for the post office...and discovered that the downtown Palo Alto post office was not participating in the ritual of just-in-time tax filing. There was, however, a note with the address of the nearest post office. Unfortunately, it was on some street called 'Bayshore' which I didn't know where it was.

(Yes, I work for a map company. No, I did not have a map, electronic or digital, with me)

I took my cue from the street name & figured Bayshore would be near the Bay. I took University ave towards the bay & figured they would have to intersect. No such luck.

Then I remembered that an ex used to play softball at a park called 'Baylands.' I guessed that Baylands & Bayshore might be close to each other...and headed for the softball park. When I saw the steady stream of vehicles heading in the same direction (probably not to a softball game), I knew I was on the right track. Sure enough, I found the post office and it was open, complete with postal employees directing traffic.

I parked in the lot, figured out what forms went where, signed in all the appropriate places & mailed my taxes...at 11:15pm.

Maybe next year I'll file electronically.

April 20, 1998