B-ack! Taxes & Screaming Meemies

Okay, I've just spent several hours doing tax crap that I would like to never have to do again. Ever. Of course, that's just not possible. I have a business, I live in Canada, I'm stuck with it. I entered so many line items that my head is splitting, compiling the data only to discover that I need to split it back out in order to fill out their stupid charts which are apparently required, and aren't simply worksheets that you don't send in. I'm an idiot.

Thankfully everything is in spreadsheet form and I can simply sort and pull it out, but for tonight, if I have any ambitions that require the continued presence of my sanity, I need to quit. At least the data is there, and it's in a workable format.

Sadly, I'm only doing 2008. I have another four years' worth to do in order to catch up. Then there are my GST forms to file, which have changed to HST forms now, so for about a year and a half of those taxes I have to change over to the new system, which uses different calculations. This is where the screaming meemies come in. After years spent living on pharmaceuticals intended for massive pain relief, and being so far behind on my accounting because of it, having to do it all in one pile now is probably going to send me to the nuthouse.

Trying to find out how to spell meemies led me to various meanings of the term. One meaning, which was spelled as mimi instead, has to do with the sounds planes made while taking off from an air force base. Presumably fighter jets, but my head hurts too much to do any real research on it for today. This blog will probably prod me to look it up at a later time, along with my own personal research obsessions. Okay never mind - had that wrong. It was incoming rockets that made the sound. Oy!

A second definition of the screaming meemies refers to something similar to the heebie-jeebies - just as scientific of a definition, I might add. Basically the creeps, the shivers, or something that gives you goosebumps (also referred to as goose pimples, but I prefer the absence of pus, thank you). This doesn't really apply to my situation with back taxes, seeing as Revenue Canada doesn't scare me. Not too many things do. Besides, they're the ones who owe me money, with interest, so they're more likely to be annoyed because I file my taxes, not because I haven't.

The third definition references a mental condition, such as a nervous breakdown. I think we can all agree that this is most apt description of someone who is doing a year's worth of accounting all at once. The accounting part is only a small piece. After that it's the forms, more forms, yet another form, and, oh, look! ANOTHER form. Personal taxes are nothing compared to business taxes. My company is a sole proprietorship, so it's simplistic compared to a corporation, but my personal and business finances are intermingled and have to be very precisely detailed.

Try doing corporate taxes some time, though. See page 4, fill out one line, see page ten and calculate the answer for line six of page 3. Then go to page 11 to add the amounts from page four and page 3. Once you have that answer, please fill out line 38 on page 2. These are Canadian tax forms for corporations - I kid you not! The worst part is, that's only a hundredth of it. Those weird instructions just keep going on and on.

The personal ones are sort of like that, too, except there aren't anywhere near as many pages or calculations. Unless, of course, you have twelve kids, foreign income, investments, RSPs, tuition and $1200 in prescriptions and medical aides. They can get pretty complicated then and it's time to hire an accountant who knows what the hell they're doing. I used to work as an accountant, although I never had the formal certification or degrees. I just worked my way up, and caught on pretty quick.

Technically I should be used to all this crap, but I'm just tired of it. This is no longer what I want to be doing with my life. The problem lies in paranoia. I don't trust anyone else to do my taxes. If I do them, even if I make a mistake, at least I know it's unintentional and not something I'm going to be convicted for. If I sign over trust to someone else, I feel like I'm just asking for trouble. I've been to H & R Block. I know very well that they never ask me the questions that they're supposed to for business accounts.

My ex had a real accountant doing his taxes, who never bothered to claim about $6,000 in prescriptions and $2,000 in tuition for his truck-driving course. Um, that's kind of a problem. I had to basically hand the receipts to the guy and tell him to do an amended return. It was worth several hundreds of dollars' refund. Money that the guy kind of needed at the time. People are far too trusting of service providers, but then that leaves me stuck doing my own damn taxes for the next few weeks until I'm caught up.

The bright side to all this is that I'm going to be sitting pretty financially for a while. Now that I'm done turning myself into a lunatic for the night, I'm going to sit back and listen to some Ozzy Osbourne. Now that's a screaming meemie I can deal with.