Weight loss for the Self-employed

I JUST filed my income tax. Because I’m self-employed, I can file as late as June 10 (so long as I continue with my quarterly payments), but August 12? That’s a little silly.

I used to be SUCH an organized daycarista. Receipts handed out last day before Christmas holiday, taxes filed mid-January. I AM an organized daycarista. This year was … well …

What happened this year? I didn’t do it in January, because — oh, I know! Because we were waiting on the husband’s T4, which doesn’t come out till the end of February. TOTALLY blameless for January, after all! (Ha!) And really, when it comes out the end of Feb, well, that means can’t get it done then, either, right?

This does not, however, explain March, April, May, June, or July… BAD, bad, bad, bad, bad…

And you know how it goes, the longer you put it off, the harder it is to start. Even opening the drawer is hard. Those files of receipts take on a malevolent presence, oozing hostility and guilt. But now! NOW the cabinet is all up-to-date!! Last year’s files are in the correct storage box in the basement, the upstairs file drawer contains only this year’s data!

YAY! I feel about ten pounds lighter! It isn’t even bugging me too much that I owe about half again as much as I was expecting. Because I’m a smart (if tardy) daycarista. I had the money set aside, just in case. I had a sort of feeling about this year’s taxes… So that extra HUGE WHACK OF MONEY? NOT bothering me. NOPE. Nuh-UH.

I still have some good habits, it seems. My accountant gave me a reduction in her fees because my forms were so neatly filled out, the information so well organized. (She provides me a fill-in-the-blanks worksheet. How difficult could it be to be organized? “You’d be surprised,” she intones, eyes somber with dark memories of shoe boxes stuffed with crumpled bits of paper. “And your handwriting is so NEAT.”)

I hereby promise myself to be a good little citizen and get the damned things filed the week after T4 time. March 1 at the latest.

Will that make me feel TWENTY pounds lighter, I wonder?