Thursday, April 12, 2007

When doing your taxes is a blessing



OK, our Federal taxes were done long ago, the return deposited into our account. After the preliminary figuring of our state taxes we discovered that we would owe a fairly significant chunk. So procrastination set in. The money ws set aside in our savings to pay it but who wants to sent the government money absolutely before you have to? Yesterday I finally bit the bullet and figured them to be sent. Only this time I realized that on the original run through we failed to take the additional exemptions for our kids (Insert V8 slap to head here). In the end we found out that not only do we NOT owe the state, they owe us! To the tune of enough money to nearly refill our emergency fund. We can not readjust our current money strategy back to debt reduction. Had we just taken the first numbers at face value and cut a check to the state we would have made a negative swing in our finances of roughly $600; YIKES. The moral to the story?

  1. Always double check your work! This goes for taxes, math homework, spell-checking and almost everything we do in life.
  2. Procrastination will cost you. Was that refund money mine all the time? You betcha. I unfortunately have to wait another 10-14 days to get my hands on it.

I hope those of you who have yet to get your taxes filed find a pleasant surprise at the end of your work as well.

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