since doomsday is upon us, we finally sucked it up and decided that today was the day to finish preparing our taxes. now, if you remember, this year we were semi-screwed by my employer who conveniently forgot to automatically deduct nyc (not ny state) taxes from my pay checks. on top of that, paul claimed a 1 on his federal deduction, so we owed a few benjis for that.
so we put off completing our taxes.
we knew that we'd want to add up our itemized deductions to try and bring the numbers down... from the company car parking that we pay for to the home office to the moving expenses, we figured that we should try. ultimately, we didn't know how to itemize, and that's the real reason we procrastinated finishing.
well, today's a rainy day, so we decided to get our errands out of the way this morning, so we could go see a movie or a show tonight... that included finishing our taxes. we did some research and figured out how to itemize, but unfortunately, we didn't have enough deductions to make a difference. then we figured out how to deduct moving expenses, and voila, we owe 1/2 what we thought we did. we feel like geniuses, for sure! taxes are confusing... and it doesn't help that all explanatory documents are written in german or chinese b/c i certainly cannot decipher them.
the cherry on top of today's ice cream sundae? i checked airfare prices for our upcoming independence day trip to lincoln, and sure enough - we found the tickets MUCH cheaper... and after much confusion and about 50 transfered calls, we were able to use a fare credit from a canceled flight. orbitz had us believing that we would lose the extra value of the $428 ticket b/c the new ticket was only $268... but we would still have to pay a $180 booking fee (even though we lost $160 on the value of the ticket). finally, we called continental*, and they gave us a travel voucher for the extra $160 to put towards paul's plane ticket! SOOOOOO, we ultimately got the full value of the $428 ticket. yay! our flights are booked, and i couldn't be more ecstatic!
other than the cloudy skies, having to pay anything to the irs (even if less than originally thought) and paul's rockin' headache, today's pretty awesome.
*continental really is the best domestic airline... hands down.
3 comments:
Continental might be my new boyfriend. I will have to see how the actual first date goes in June, but the courting process has me optimistic.
and ya, taxes are never fun when you have to pay. We owed a little to the state of Cali, but not enough to help them with their ginormous problems.
yay for taxes finally being done! and for you not having to pay as much as you thought :)
make sure to send me your ticket info please :)
I totally believe in the tax man. They always get us money back. And if they make a mistake, they pay. It is worth every penny. I like Frontier, they only charge 15,000 frequent flier miles instead of 25,000. Now that is worth talking about!
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