Remembering Oscar Madison of “The Odd Couple” on Income Tax Day

Well, it used to be one of those dreaded yearly milestones — staying up late the night before, crossing every T and dotting every I and making sure to get your return in the mail and postmarked before midnight on the 15th of April.  No one asked for extensions in time in those days.  We didn’t want to draw attention to ourselves and risk being audited.

I don’t remember exactly when that entire “Income Tax Scenario” began to change.  Maybe about the time that H and R Block started in 1955.  At least that’s the first place I remember going to for help with all those forms and reports.  Or maybe the dreaded income tax just didn’t seem so onerous by the 1960s and ’70s when government agencies of one kind or another began to permeate our existence.

This year, with Nyel in the hospital for almost an entire month just before April 15th, we didn’t give any of it a thought.  We contacted our CPA and asked her to file for an extension and have slept easy right through last night.  On the other hand, there was an excise tax payment due to the State of Washington for the few books that I’ve sold at retail this year.  Nyel always takes care of that online — easy-peasy.

But yesterday, even the Help Line Lady at the State Revenue Office could NOT help us out.  It was a computer mess-up with repeated  lock-outs to our information.  Frustrating to the max.  Fortunately, the Help Line Lady ran into the same techie difficulties we did and filed for an extension on the spot — the downside being more hours with someone on the phone today trying to figure out what went wrong with the computer algorithm.  Nyel is truly a saint!

So… if you are in a similar circumstance due to the dreaded April 15th date, you have our greatest sympathy.  This too shall pass.