tax season

On another mundane note, today’s Wall Street Journal (the article is not available in the free online section) reports that about 60% of all Americans use a professional tax preparer to do their income taxes, with mixed results – even professionals miss deductions and miscalculate. Special thanks to my wife Ariella who once again has performed this task of drudgery which I have no patience for or skill at. We (or actually, she) always prepares our own return, which we always file on time. The one year we hired a professional we gave this person all our paperwork a few weeks in advance only to receive a phone call literally the night before the taxes were due explaining that he had fallen behind, he had other personal issues, etc. and could he file an extension for us. We adamantly insisted he finish our relatively simple return that night and have never used a tax preparer again. For those of you who are accountants, good luck over the next few weeks of sleepless nights.