Taxes

I know it's a bit late in the season to be posting about Taxes but it happens to be on my mind at the moment.  I hope by now that most of you have finished filing your 2012 taxes or at least started them.  If not, I strongly suggest you get that ball rolling.  

Being a military wife, tax season can be a bigger hassle than normal.  With our husbands away on deployment or training, it is hard to collect all the information we need.  Especially since his W2 is electronic and we need all sorts of usernames and pass codes to get access to it.  Sometimes we are lucky enough to have an opportunity to have him print it out, or even get an extension on filing, but that is rarely the case.  

This year, my husband and I are trying to file taxes from 1700 miles apart.  Most of our tax paperwork gets mailed to me, I either mail or fax it to him, then he collects it all for filing.  For the most part this has been working, but it helps when I know what he is looking for.  I had been bugging him for weeks to start filing but he kept putting it off.  Finally, he told me that he didn't have our mortgage information.  For all I knew, we had all the information and he was just procrastinating.  Cue me feeling like a total jerk for being on his case for weeks.  I finally get the paper we need and continue to forget to send it to him.  So, we have decided that I will just read him the necessary info over the phone this weekend and we will get our taxes done.  My concern now is that I will give him the wrong information and everything will get screwed up.  That is just how my karma rolls sometimes.  I will be so relieved when this process is over.  

It is hard enough filing taxes on our own.  Throw in a husband, some kids, and a mortgage and things get a bit more complicated.  Then ship our husband off to another country, or state, and scatter the paperwork all over the place and it's likely our heads will pop off befor taxes get filed.  

As military wives, we are taught to take care of everything on the home front while our soldier is deployed. But when the time comes, it can all be a bit overwhelming.  Try to keep a system for things like this.  Collect all your receipts in one central location, preferably something more organized than a shoe box, and organize tax paperwork as soon as you get it.  If you do your taxes yourself, get started early so you can take your time.  If you have someone else do them for you, try to be as organized as possible when you walk in their office so there job is as simple as possible.  And don't forget any deductions!