DEATH AND TAXES

Taxes. I hate doing my taxes. Well, actually hated, as in I don’t do it anymore, because I don’t have to, not because I decided to be a rogue citizen living on the edge by avoiding taxes.

A few years ago, I used to work in an office in which we had no contract whatsoever, and required to hand out receipts (which we had to pay for) for each paycheck. This means I had to either have some unknown CPA do my taxes for me, or ask my mother to do them for me. I went for option number 2, for obvious reasons. My mom used to work for a CPA, and I would send her all my information, regarding my monthly income and expenses via e-mail, since she lived about three hours away. She explained to me as much as I could wrap my head around the process of declaring one’s taxes. When she explained it to me she used words, she used charts, she used booklets with ‘simple’ useful information on them, dioramas, at one point there were apples, grapes and a watermelon, to no avail. I have no understanding for taxes. Not even Dora would be able to enlighten me on the subject. I’m an architect, I like math, I’m good with numbers, but when it comes to talking about revenues, interests, rates, proceeds, etc my brain gets overwhelmed and starts going like this.

Ultimately, she told me what to do with the information I had and she would do the rest. It was easier to leave me in the dark than explaining all of it to a blank face.

 Suffice to say that I never got the hang of it, and thanks to that resolve of having my mother take care of everything made me feel safe I wasn’t pulling a Wesley Snipes on the country’s big house of moneys, otherwise known as SAT.

About a year and a half later, my mom told me I needed to find someone else to do my taxes, since she was quitting her job, and she didn’t have the software at home, which is only acquirable if you are a certified CPA. I found one, and thankfully she was great, and also I needed her to only do my last two months of taxes and file my annual notice. I’m not even sure what the terminology is here, all I knew there were papers I had to sign and send. And then that was that, I had quit my job as well and only had to wait till April month of taxes swinged by to do the annual thing and then say buh- bye to the SAT. Or at least that’s what I thought.

About a year later I received an e-mail from the home treasury stating I had to update my status in order to declare my next taxes. First, I naturally went “Da fuuuck?” and then I decided it must’ve been a mistake. That night I called my mom to ask her what it meant if maybe I was missing something.

She didn’t answer the phone, but my dad did, and I started telling him about my conundrum, stating that I was probably making a bigger deal than it actually was. Then my dad, the prankster he usually is, tells me “Don’t worry, I’ll send you cigarettes so you can trade when you’re in jail.”

The conversation followed like this: “Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!! Daaaaaaaad!! Hahahahahaha… hmm... Hahahaha… Hahaha… Ha… Wait, you’re joking right? RIGHT? That can’t happen… Can it?”

"I'm sorry, I have to go watch Prison Break right freakin' now!"

To which my dad replied: “Well, I don’t know if you’ve seen the news lately, but a new law has been approved that if you haven’t declared your income while still being on their system you might go to jail, even if you’ve been unemployed, you have to report this kind of stuff… You sure you were discharged from the system?” I was like whaaaa? “Yeah, I mean, I think so… I told the CPA to do that… Imma look for those papers right now.” Which I did.

I dug out a bunch of papers I had on binders, folders and clips and there was nothing. Nothing that stated I was no longer on the SAT system. I wanted to die, of course, while my mom on the other end of the phone was driving us both nuts cause I couldn’t find those very important papers. I pictured myself behind the bars, a smoke on my left hand, a small knife concealed in the right one, talking to other female inmates who were there for manslaughter, theft, drug muling, and for wearing crocs (that is a crime, right?) Shivers were going up and down my spine like it was an amusement park ride.

After a while, like 30 minutes or so, my dad came up with the answer. He entered my information onto the SAT site and a click here, a click there, random keyboard noises, and voilá, there was my official status which affirmed my discharge in the system since May of the year before.

I felt like I had breathed for the first time since my dad’s cigarette comment and a huge weight had been lifted from my Al Capone shoulders. And then it hit me, like a train off the rails, that I could’ve gone to jail. I suddenly felt like a badass for being able to pen that down in my list of close call experiences.

100% Badass. Now I don't really need to
know how to do my taxes. No, wait.

Me. In jail. I couldn’t believe it, I don’t know anyone who’d been so close to saying the same thing, which made me more into a badass. I realize I was completely delusional like Ross was when he was sure someone made an attempt to kill him when he, Joey and Chandler went for a ride along with Phoebe’s cop boyfriend. But, I don’t care. Us badasses don’t care.  Right? I’ll ask my dad. 


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