'Cause I'm the taxman...

First off, I need to thank Karl. He graced me with an Excellent Blog Award! This is kinda cool seeing that about the only thing I really receive that is blog related usually begins with "Please cease and desist..." So this is quite the pleasant surprise!

And I will follow the rules as stated by whoever started this award. Apparently I must now:

1. Identify the originator of this award, and link so he can get his well-deserved traffic. That would be Mr. Secondhand Tryptophan himself, Karl!
   
2. Pass on at least 10 Excellent Blog Awards.

10? Only 10? Well, shoot. Whittling it all down might not be too easy. But I'm going to try. Seeing as how this is very limiting, I don't want anyone to feel left out. I still love ya. But I'm also going to try to give the award to people that didn't just receive it from Karl, either. And, let me tell ya, that's not easy considering we read a lot of the same blogs.

• ajooja
• Citizen of the Month
• Cotters in My Tummy
• Down With Pants!
• Iron Fist
• It's Me... Penelope
• kilax
• Refuse to Blog
• Sizzle Says
• work in progress...

All of these are excellent blogs and I really encourage you to check them out. Except that Refuse to Blog gal, Lisa. She paid for inclusion on this list. ;-) JK.

I hate to admit that there may be an ulterior motive to my participation in this award. Perhaps I'm hoping, by doing this, that I will receive some good karma as tonight I'm heading into the accountant to file our tax returns. And I'd like to actually receive some money this year. Supposedly we're eligible for that big payback that Dubya is offering up, but we'll see.

Yes, I use an accountant because he knows his stuff and charges us very little because he's my dad's longtime accountant. We've got too much crap we're juggling here in terms of statements and whatnot and I'd have no idea what to do if I decided to use some online program to file them.

It's really probably just a matter of sitting down and learning how to do it. But it involves scary things like numbers and math. Then, there's the constant fear of an audit. Bright spotlights shone in my face as two big guys in gorilla suits and dark sunglasses pistolwhip me with Texas Instruments scientific calculators while forcing me to account for my piss-poor math skills.

Okay, I might be exaggerating a bit. And I realize I'm pretty small potatoes in the grander scheme of things, but I'm also pretty certain I'd mentally crack under the stress of an audit, even without calculator-based assault and battery. So knowing that I have someone who is licensed to back me up just in case is a big reassurance.

But some good juju doesn't hurt either.

Comments

[SJ]

That's pretty much my concept of a tax audit, too. Thank God we only do the super-short form.

However, you earned bad karma by listing BOTH my fairy blogdaughters (Kim and Suze) on your Excellence awards. Now I can't, dang it! Well, ya got good taste.

[Nilsa S.]

You're a lucky man I already got an Excellent award (and just haven't posted it yet). If not? I might not be talking to you anymore. :-)

I think this is the last year I'm doing my own taxes. If only I could have a family friend do mine, too. I want a discount!

[Hilly]

Great choices! I made a little mini-bet with myself that I would know everyone on the list and I do! We're so incestuous, this blogging crowd ;).

[sizzle]

I definitely need to pay this forward as this is the second (or third?) E award I've received. I have a post half-written waiting to be published. Damn me!

Kevin, you don't need juju. You're like the nicest guy on earth. But for good measure, I hope everything goes well with the tax man. ;)

[sizzle]

Um, yeah, it'd be polite if I said "thank you."

THANK YOU!!

[Kyra]

Oh crap... I forgot about taxes. I don't wanna do them!

Good vibes to you on yours though!

[Elaine]

Eeek, numbers and math give me tremors. I'm 25 and I still send my tax stuff home to Texas to my dad. Embarrassing but true.

[diane]

I would be lost without my Accountant. Actually, I would be in jail. I'm having a hard enough time pulling together the deductions worksheet he needs by March 31st. :(

[Penelope]

Wowowowowow!! My first ever award - I'm not a virgin anymore and I owe my de-flowering to you!
Thank you SO much Kevin!!
Now go and do your taxes ;o)

[kapgar]

SJ, I knew Kim was your fairy blogdaughter, but I had no idea Suze was, too. No! No bad juju! You can still name them since you were named by Karl who did not name them! See? We're all good! ;-)

Nilsa, he's not really a family friend. But he's become close as a result of being our accountant for so long. Doing our taxes takes a couple hours because we sit there chatting for so long. I didn't mean to leave you out! That's why I had the disclaimer in there! ;-)

Hilly, aren't we, though?

sizzle, thanks! And you deserve all two or three of the E awards.

Kyra, thanks! Who does yours?

Elaine, my dad did my taxes (or had them done) for me throughout college. As soon as I got out, I was given the accountant's phone number to deal with it "myself."

diane, thankfully I don't even worry about a deductions worksheet. I bring in my statements and he does everything. Thank God.

Penelope, I feel so grown up all of a sudden. So manly! ;-)

[Foo]

Tax guys rock. I spend a day or two gathering up info. and then he makes the magic happen. The cost (which isn't cheap because I don't have a connection) is worth the peace of mind. Good luck!

[ajooja]

Hey! Thank you very much.

I finally found a decent local accounting/tax service/investment office this year. They know my family. I trust them. They're cheap. Can't beat that.

[tori]

We use a guy for our taxes too. The amount he charges is well worth it. We got a letter from the IRS the other day and he is taking care of it. We will actually get more money back due to their inquiry. If I had been on my own, I would have been running around in panic trying to figure out how I messed up. Thank goodness our guy is here to take care of it for us!

[kapgar]

Foo, and peace of mind is a fantastic thing.

ajooja, you're welcome! Can't beat that with a stick!

tori, isn't it great?

[Miss Britt]

Hmph! Fuck you both!

How's THAT for good karma? ;-)

[kapgar]

Britt, "both"? I thought Karl gave you one? That's why I didn't. Did he not? (I can't check his blog because I'm at work). I'm sorry. Really. :-(

[Karl]

See? Didn't want any hurt feelings. Britt is awesome and I'm thrilled that I just discovered her a couple of months ago. You know, since everyone else already knew how great she is.

[Allison]

Eh, taxes aren't that bad. I do ours on Turbotax. It only takes me about 3 hours and I have to do a federal, 2 state and a local return. And tax people that I found want to charge me $400 for them because I have business k-1s and 2 state returns. It only costs me $60.00 to do them on Turbotax.

I do send the business taxes out, though. All the payroll crap and everything is too confusing for me.

[Debbie]

well I am in no hurry to do our taxes.. we have to pay this year and that sucks so very bad.. ugh

[Lisa]

Niiiice!!! LOL

If I'd known that going into hibernation mode and contemplating shutting my blog down would bring me an award I would have done it a long time ago.

(Check's in the mail! :P)

[kilax]

Thanks, pal :)

Kevin, I can tell just by reading your post, that you have lots of good karma in store. You're a good guy :)

[Neil]

Are you getting any money back this year?

[kapgar]

Karl, I can't believe it really took me so long to discover her.

Allison, actually I get charged about the same by our accountant. Heh.

Debbie, hold off till the last second. No use them getting more interest money off you than they have to, right?

Lisa, shutting down??? The hell you say! Now you can't! Same sort of thing happened to me several months ago. I talked about how I really dug this guy's music blog and he thanked me in my comments followed by him telling me that he was shutting down. Not a good track record here.

kilax, thanks. Oh, and you're more than deserving of this.

Neil, shhhhhhhh (yep).

[suze]

Now I feel bad I didn't check out your blog yesterday....

Oh, and thanks :)

[John]

Hey congrats on the BIG "E", I'm just now becoming a regular reader, but I dig your blog. And thanks for your Top 10; I'm familiar with a few but will check out the rest.

Peace Bruddah.

[kapgar]

suze, no worries! It sometimes takes me a couple days to check so I don't hold anything against people who delay their checking. But I wouldn't want you to miss it, either. ;-)

John, and peace be wit you too, man.

[Iron Fist]

Hey, I got an award! woo-hoo! Thanks Kapgar!

[Iron Fist]

I could have sworn I left a comment here earlier saying thanks for the award, but either TypePad ate it or I hallucinated the whole thing.

So anyway...thanks! (And I hope this comment shows up!)

[Iron Fist]

Oh, there it is. Now I'm an idiot. Ugh.

[kapgar]

Nah. Typepad's comments get a little wonky sometimes. I thought the problem was fixed, but I guess not. And you're welcome!

[Brandon]

Hey thanks for the award! It's always fun to go through your bloglines after almost two week away from the blogosphere and see something awesome!

[kapgar]

Brandon, two weeks??? I should rescind it! JK ;-)

[Brandon]

Ugh. Don't even get me started on how hard it is to do anything on my parents dial-up connection. I barely could even check my e-mail.

[kapgar]

Early Christmas gift of a DSL subscription? Cheap and decent enough. No one needs to know it's mostly to help you. ;-)

[Brandon]

My parents live up an easement road that the cable company won't run cable on. It's ridiculous. They've said since we moved there almost 20 years ago that we would have to pay to run all the cable - same with the phone company - and the price to run all of that cable is unbelievable. So they have Direct TV and suffer through dial-up.