tax time

So tax time is looming again. Cut off dates for RRSPs etc coming up at month end, and time to start crossing my t's and dotting my i's, so to speak. In other words, time for my annual worry fest to begin. Does anyone else hate this time of year? I absolutely dread it. I don't know why, really. I keep track of all my paperwork as it comes in the mail. I have a few extra things I have to do as my husband does earn part of his income each year under his own business name, and so I have to keep track of that in addition to all the other bits and pieces that go with tax time - things you can write off, etc. I'm no accountant, so I try to keep it as simple as I can, but it can be a bit tricky, as I'm most of you out there can attest to. The thing is, I have this problem with honesty. As in I am super honest, to the point where I worry that even if I think I've done everything correctly that it will somehow turn out that I didn't and I will be in big trouble.  I am horribly paranoid that I will do something wrong, forget something or what have you, and then one day there will be this knock on the door and these guys who look something like the evil virus dudes from The Matrix will be standing on my front porch, waiting to take me away to whatever special hell is set aside for people who screw up on their income tax. And I'll be shrieking "but I didn't MEAN to, really! I swear I thought I had everything in that shoebox organized properly!!"as they drag me off, and no one will ever hear from me again....
So every year after tax time is done, I promise myself to be more organized, to get everything ready long before the cutoff day. That way I won't have anything to be worried about, I will know I've done everything right. But every year I seem to end up in low grade panic by the end of April. Okay, so the fact that I am already worrying about this and it's still February is a good thing I figure. I am hoping this means that I will be really motivated to get everything in order right away, and then this year I swear I swear I am going to get that filing system set up that I always say I'm going to do, and it will all be easy peasy this time next year.
Remind me to look back at this next year in April and see what I have to say then. Assuming that I haven't mysteriously vanished after posting this which somehow alerted those scary Matrix tax guys to my presence and they carted me off the moment after I filed my taxes, oh man...