Doing business with a new Tax Person.

 

I'm frustrated over a series of events.  For the past 40 years, I have been using the same tax preparer.  This winter, she announced her retirement.  And now, I had to hustle to find someone new.  So, I ended up reaching out to a transgender CPA I know, and was awakened to a hard fact - I've had it very easy over the past few years. Without mentioning this CPA's name, I know that she follows all the rules.  And that's a good thing for me.  I don't intend to break the law just to save a few pennies.  Privately, I will give this person's name out and make a recommendation - as I did for RQS.

Most of the information this new tax person is requesting is something my brother and I should have at hand.  Given that my brother is the financial expert in the family, I always took what he gave me and handed it to my old tax person.  Now, I have to provide more information, and have my brother explain what's going on.  I'm not looking forward to a conflict that will force me to look for a new person at the last minute.

This weekend, I had a chat with RQS and explained why I want to dissolve this tie that binds me to my brother.  I depend on him too much, and the extra complexity that owning an income producing property provides is not worth it.  Hopefully, my brother will soon feel the same way about the old family homestead.

A trip to Mystic Seaport

 

My brother is temporarily unemployed for a month, and this is the first real "vacation" he's had in years.  So, it was nice to spend a whole day with him, driving to Mystic Seaport and back.  

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The day began for me by not having enough sleep the night before, and rushing to get out of the house in time to meet him in Port Chester.  Once he arrived, we took care of a little personal business before going on our way - he needed some hand cream, and I needed a pair of tweezers.  From there, we spent the next 2 hours driving to Mystic to visit the museum.

Once at the museum, we found parts of it closed, possibly for the winter.  Yet, it well worth the drive to get there.  On the way, we talked "of shoes, and ships, and sealing wax, and whether pigs have wings." There are a lot of things going on in his life, and it looks like he's made the decision to plateau his career.  This will give him more time to live his life without the stress of staying upwardly mobile, while being with the people who make his life worth living.

It was nice to see these old buildings and ships placed into a context befitting a nautical town of the 1800's.  At one exhibit, we ran into a docent who started talking about his visits to San Francisco and its local beer - Anchor Steam.  Once he mentioned Anchor Steam, I got into the story of how Fritz Maytag once rescued the brewery, and how the pandemic ended up killing the brewery off.  Next, we explored the rest of the museum, visiting an old bank building, an old schoolhouse, and old chapel, and a whaling ship.  It was very educational for someone not focused on maritime history,  Yet, with half of the museum exhibits being closed, it means that we will return someday soon.

On the way home, my brother asked me to do some of the driving, as his back was killing him.  I was glad that he trusted me to drive his car, and we ended up at an Asian place outside of Norwalk.  The food was good, but not spectacular.  Once done with dinner, my brother took back the helm of his car, and we drove to Port Chester to say Goodbye until next time....

Anger

 

As my therapist taught me, anger is a secondary emotion.  It comes from the need to deal with another feeling which is often unidentified before anger erupts.  (I forgot exactly how he liked to describe it.)  Once a person gets angry, a lot of negative things can happen.

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Like many kids, I had an unhappy childhood.  My mother and grandmother were people who used fear to get their kids to comply with their directives. Both would get mad for reasons that normal children could not understand or deal with in a healthy manner. When my grandmother had a massive stroke, I was happy for a while - one source of terror was almost removed from my life.  The problem was that she became a shell of her former self, needing assistance for everything - including help to get up and being walked to the toilet.  At times, I had to babysit my grandmother when I should have been out playing.  One should not ask this, much demand this of a 7 year old child.  I guess this was one of the many causes of many feelings I had to repress.

At a certain time in my childhood, my parents realized something was wrong and took me to see several psychiatrists. Unfortunately, the DSM-4 (or whatever level it was then) didn't have entries for disorders caused by f**ked up family dynamics.  If they had, maybe I could have had a happier childhood, as I might have learned the skills to deal with many of the problems that come in life.

As I got older, the urge to get married and have children came along.  Knowing that my temper was a severe liability, I did not want to have children.  The risk of harming them as was done to me was too great.  But this also hurt my wife, as neither of us knew how to communicate our feelings to the other.  To this day, I'll never know if she would have wanted children, as we never had this discussion.  I feared letting myself get angry at her, as I felt that the only argument we'd have would destroy the relationship. So, when she became terminally ill, I can't be sure if either of us knew that we loved each other anymore because of our inability to communicate.

It took a while, but I eventually stumbled into an LCSW who taught me many of the skills needed to have a healthy relationship with someone else.  However, he couldn't help me deal with other issues that would cause me grief later on, such as settling for the first person who would put up with me after each loss.  

Just before the pandemic hit, I lost the two closest friends I had.  I need not rehash the reasons here.  But I ended up a better person because of it.  Now, I take a "Let it Slide" attitude to many things, as there are many more important things to be concerned about.  Letting go of anger, both repressed and non-repressed ended up being a good thing, as I can move forward to the future.  My current girlfriend can see when I get frustrated, and she knows that if she gives me a second to process what's going on, that I can stay rational and be the person she cares about.  Again, I am grateful to have her in my life at this time in my life.  But then, I've said this often in this blog....

Lunch with a friend was the high point of the day

 

I had three things on the docket today, and I blew one off because it looked like we'd have heavy rain in the evening. Luckily, the most important thing, lunch with my friend from the census was on, and we had a great time.

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Although I had my alarms set for 10 am, I didn't get moving until 11 am.  This meant that I only had an hour to get ready for lunch. Since this was going to be a day out as Marian, I made sure to shave all over before getting dressed and made up to go out for lunch.  I may have stood out a little by wearing a sweater dress instead of jeans, but I prefer the feel of a dress over that of trouser like garments.

Arriving at 12:30 pm, I was at the restaurant first for a change.  My friend arrived a couple of minutes later, and I proceeded to chat about my car purchase saga.  Then, I had fun telling her about the man from another meetup group who wanted to help this old lady. She had her own stories to tell as well, such as her upcoming trip out west.  Hopefully, the family will have a great time on this birthday trip.

All too soon, we had to leave.  And my next stop for the day was Trader Joe's, where I hoped to pick up a small tote bag for RQS.  Unfortunately, I could only find the bag in the next size up.  So, I guess that's a keeper for me, and that I'll keep looking for one for her.  Luckily, a visit to TJ's rarely makes a big dent in my wallet.  So I didn't mind going out of the way on a rainy day.

Eventually, I got home.  But I wasn't in the mood to go out.  So I posted a quick message in the meetup forum, and then focused on attending an Arts Westchester Zoom meeting.  I figure that I'll ramp up activities with this organization, as it will give me things to do when I'm up in Westchester....

The board meeting got off to a buggy start

 

Today was dedicated to work for the Co-Op.  Nothing was too strenuous.  But it meant that I had to go out in the world as Mario instead of Marian.

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One of the things I am responsible for doing is to take care of some financial transactions as directed by our board's president.  Today, I had to run down to the bank and have a check cut.  Now that I am used to doing this, I still find that I'd rather not be one of the two people who can sign paperwork for the co-op.  I was in and out of the bank in 5 minutes, and drove into town to get a bite to eat.

Once I finished with the bank, I dropped the check off to its recipient and proceeded to take care of a couple of tasks before returning home for the board meeting.  And that's where the glitch occurred.  Although I had sent a zoom link update, one board member didn't get it.  So I had to resend the link while the meeting was going on. Then the meeting proceeded normally.

When we had our old site manager, he wasted a lot of time fighting us all the way.  A meeting that we once completed in 2-2½ hours started stretching to 3½ hours, the extra time being wasted by the old site manager, as he fought us at every chance.  Now that we have this youngster, we completed our business in 2 hours.  What a relief!

I could go on and on about things.  But even I found most of the day to be a bore....

I just put a deposit down for a new car!

 

The title of this entry says it all.  I have finally put money down on a new car.  Yay!  Now to figure out what to do with the old car.  With this being said, I know that I can always donate the car to a charity and get a tax deduction.  But I won't get more than a fraction of what the car is worth.

Although it's been over 40 years since I bought the apartment I live in, I'm still surprised that this car costs almost the same as my apartment did way back when.  (Of course, indexed for inflation, my car costs the same as an equivalent car of that era.)  Yet, I was a little nervous about this purchase, as I committed to writing what will likely be one of the largest checks that I will likely write in my life. 

I'm looking forward to driving this car.  But I will likely NOT be taking it to RQS's place that often, as owning a new car can be a liability in the outer boroughs of NYC.  A high mileage, older car is never going to be at risk for theft.  But a low mileage, new car becomes a great risk for theft of parts.  I was reminded of that when I signed the contract for the car, when I had to ink a clause declining to have a VIN number etched on my catalytic converter.  No one buying a "hot" converter cares about an etched unit, and they could easily obscure the etching if that reduces a criminal's chance of getting caught.

The deal I cut was unusual, as it was an all-cash deal without seller financing.  The sales manager wanted to offer me financing, and I declined for reasons I didn't give him.  (Specifically, I didn't want to unfreeze my credit report and potentially open myself up to identity fraud.) When the car is delivered, I expect that the sales manager will try to upsell me on things such as: Ceramic Ding Shield, Tire & Wheel Protection, and Key Security (insurance on the key fob, which may cost $500 to replace.)  Of these, I may buy the ding shield (after having some questions answered) and the key fob insurance (if it covers the loss of more than one key fob).  Most importantly, I have about a month to take care of things before the car reaches the dealership and I have to get a certified check for the balance. 

It's going to be a great change for me - and a welcome one. 

Getting ready for tax day

 

It's been a little frustrating having to wait for my brother to finish up paperwork needed for me to file my taxes.  This will be a yearly problem as long as we jointly own a rental property.  But this year is different, as I have had to search for a new tax preparer.  And I decided to duck one issue by choosing someone I knew from my work at the LGBT center, as I felt I needed some form of familiarity with someone new.  With familiarity, I can more easily communicate my concerns about my newly complex tax situation, and ask how I can prevent problems in the future.

Taxes in the US are needlessly complicated, as most tax preparation forms depend on complexity to justify their existence.  There is n excuse for this, as most Americans have all of their significant income reported to the IRS.  Ideally, the government could receive a taxpayer's income statements, deductible state/local tax information, and generate a bill/refund for the taxpayer.  (Let's ignore privacy issues here for now.  I'm just arguing for simplicity.)  In theory, the vast majority of us wouldn't need to pay for tax preparation services, as the same computers that are programmed to detect tax fraud would also be doing tax preparation for us.  

Unfortunately, I would still be likely to need a tax preparer, as long as I own part of a rental property.  But how many Americans own one?  Business owners would still need their accountants, as they would always need to track money flows within a corporation, determine the net profitability (or lack of) of the corporation, and insure that properly computed taxes are paid to all affected governments.  

With all of this being said, I am grateful to have my problems instead of others.  I know how to manage my problems, as they are "first world problems."  It could be much worse.  All too many of us do not have the resources to get by in one of the most prosperous nations on this planet.  Getting rid of the inefficiencies of our system may just provide some of these people a small bit of relief.