My Stupidity and Taxes
So... being the terrible procrastinator that I am, I waited until the last minute to do taxes. Well, that's not exactly true, I filed on April 13, but I needed to send off the check and I couldn't find my stamps, so I waited until April 15 to mail my check (federal only, I sent off the $2 I owed for State taxes electronically).
Well, I put my check in the sidewalk mailbox at 5:40pm, and then realized that it was too late to get it postmarked for the day. So what did I do? I decided it would be smartest to pay by credit card online ($30 "fee" tacked on and all) to make sure the IRS got my payment on time.
My payment did go through, it seems, but now I have a check out to the IRS for $1243 and I have no idea if they're going to cash it or not. If they check my records they'd see I paid it already and not cash the check, but I have a feeling it isn't going to be so simple. I imagine they'd cash the check, then see that I've paid twice, then, in two years or so, send me a refund for the money I overpaid.
The big problem here is that this means I need to keep gobs of money in my checking account in order to ensure I won't overdraft.
Meanwhile I think my estimated tax payment is going to get in late since I mailed it at the same time. I'm hoping any penalty fee on that won't be so bad since it's only a day late at the latest.
Ok, this year I'm really going to keep on top of things! I bought myself a cute little accordion folder to keep all of my receipts for anything work related, which hopefully will make it easy to turn my taxes over to a CPA at the end of the year.
I really need to get organized. I am so terribly ADD, disorganized and the whole nine.
Ugh.
1 comments:
It is a good lesson to learn because it helps you become better next time around, especially with your taxes.
Consider having a savings account linked to your checking account for overdraft protection. This way you avoid any finance charges but you would have to replace the money in your savings account soon as possible because there are strings attached.
I currently do this and only have a small amount from my paycheck direct deposited into my linked savings account so it grows over time. It gives me the peace of mind from overdrafts issues and actually has improved my tracking skills without worrying about it.
One nice advantage is if you know you are going to overdraft, you can transfer from your linked savings to your checking immediately to prevent overdraft which means you don't have to replace the money right away. If I find myself doing this, I "charge" myself a fee $20 on top of what I have to replace so I keep growing. Great post.
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