Taxes, Taxes, Taxes

I think my taxes are going to kill me this year.  Ugh.  And not just because I may owe the IRS more than my first born child.  The actual "getting the taxes done" is proving to make me want to stick a toothbrush in my eyeball. 

At first, I attempted to hire an accountant who had done our taxes in the past.  But, in spite of the fact that we called the first week of February, she was completely booked for the tax year.  So, I figured, hey, I've been doing them online with the help of an online tax preparer for the last couple of years, I'm sure I can do it again this year.  Wrong.  We are in a different situation this year due to the house in Limerick which we were finally able to get rid of this past spring.  (Who knew there were so many 1099 forms??  I sure didn't!)

Since we'd been using a tax preparing company that has physical offices as well as online access, we made an appointment and took our stuff in to a human tax preparer that we could see and touch...well, touch if we wanted to, which we didn't, because that's weird.  And while I would like to say that I have complete confidence in this human tax preparer with 14 years of experience; I don't.  He's asked me some really dumb questions, and that has me worried.

So, like any US citizen terrified of pissing off the IRS, I've opted to start reading IRS publications to figure out what is going on so I can speak intelligently to my tax preparer.  I'm pretty sure it's part of the IRS mission statement to use terms and phrases that are not part of the English language.  Or any language.  Seriously, how are you supposed to read that crap??

But, I can say now that I'm feeling pretty confident in regards to IRS Publication 4861 and Form 982.  Watch out human tax preparer that I'm not comfortable touching, I'm going to be quizzing you on your familiarity with Qualified Principal Residence Indebtedness and the Insolvency Worksheet in Publication 4861.  You don't know what you just got yourself into...