My life, for what it's worth, part 2

My brother had his surgery and is recovering very well.  However he can't drive for 12 weeks.  His daughter goes to the same high school Emily did, and apparently he's been driving her in the morning.  He asked if I could take her for the foreseeable future.  This will mean getting up about 6 a.m. again.  I thought those days were over.  But I said yes. Tonight I found out he's got my mother picking her up after school.  Why can't she take the city bus, I asked.  That's what Emily did.  It gets her kind of close to my mom's house, she can walk there and then mom can take her home from there.  It's the same bus I took when I went there, for that matter. Apparently the bus is not an option for her.  Hmmm.  I must be a very bad mother.  All my kids took the bus home from school.  I get driving them in the morning, but there's plenty of time and buses in the afternoon.  Ridiculous.  And my mother really sh...

Today was a sobering day.  I have a client who is dying of lung cancer at 61.  She never filed her 2014 tax return so the IRS did it for her and now they say she owes $400,000.  Her family wants to get this settled before she dies, and they brought me a big box of receipts to sort through and put things together. The receipts all smell of cigarette smoke, which makes me sad.  Projects like this really give me a snapshot into a person's life.  She ran a small restaurant.  In the box are complaint letters, business receipts, thank you cards, catering menus, you name it.  They threw in her personal stuff too, I found receipts for teeth whitening and facials and fancy haircuts.  The number of NSF fees is astonishing, one month she had over $1000 in bank fees alone. I wonder if she'd have made different choices if she'd known she had such a short time left.                    _____________________...

Wow.  Just wow. Today is the day people have to file their tax returns if they filed an extension.  I had sent all but one of my returns out for signature before today.  The last one got me his last form last night, and I sent it out first thing this morning. One guy told me he'd be in to sign between 3 and 4, and he came.  He paid my (rather large) fee, thanked me profusely and left.  His ex wife had to sign too, and she had some trouble but she got it done in the end. Another one, the wife signed about noon.  At about 2 the husband started emailing me, very upset because he couldn't sign on his phone and he was in a meeting.  My eyes rolled so hard my partner heard them in the next office.  He finally managed to sign, but he was pretty grumpy about it.  (let's be clear, again -- they've known since April that today was the deadline, and didn't even get me anything until Thursday). My final one that I thought I might get back, the on...

I went to work on Sunday for four hours, and got everything done that I could.  I sent out stuff for signature.  One guy owes $75000.  Another one owes $50,000.  Some really earth-shattering amounts this year.  But I've done everything I can.  I have eight returns left that are all out for signature.  I'm going home at 4 tomorrow, and if they're not back to me by then, oh well.  My mantra is, I can't make people care. Michael has been dating a lovely young woman named Lucy for about two years.  I like her very much, and she seems to like me, which is huge, because I scare a lot of people.  She's very smart and down to earth.  Michael seems to think she's going to be in the picture for a long time, which makes me happy. Emily is dating a young man named A, I'm not giving his name yet because I'm not so sure he's permanent.  He makes her very happy a lot of the time, but he can also be a little, shall we say, whiny.  Em ...

Wow.  Today was... unforgettable.  I called it way worse than that as it progressed, but I think I'll try not to swear too much here. Tuesday is October 15.  That is the day that you absolutely, positively have to get your taxes in in order to avoid penalties.  You were supposed to pay what you owed in April, but people don't know that.  They think if they procrastinate enough they don't have to send the money in right away.  Or maybe they think if they wait long enough they won't owe, I dunno. My first clients of the day came to me last year for the first time.  They made their appointment several days ago.  I asked if they could please get me their information ahead of time so we could finish up today.  They sent me everything about 4 yesterday afternoon.  Whatever.  I stayed late and got it done.  And then when I looked at my email this morning she'd sent me a whole bunch of new numbers, and another form she'd forgotten....

Today I met with a client I've been working on for several weeks.  They're doing an offer in compromise, which means that they owe the IRS much more than they could ever hope to pay, and we're trying to settle so they can move on. They're in their late 70s and have nothing.  Very little savings, no house, no retirement, nothing.  They've got social security, and they're both working a little bit and that's it.  Not enough to live here. Today the wife came in to pick up her packet to mail in, and she mentioned that if I talk to the IRS about them I should mention that her husband is having "a few" memory problems.  Like what, I asked.  Well, like last night he was out after dark and couldn't figure out how to get home.  She had to go out looking for him.  She started crying when she told me how scared she'd been. I pulled out the letter I'd written to go with the offer and rewrote it.  That offer is a slam dunk. Sometimes I feel ...

There have been so many times lately I've thought, oh, I should put that on Facebook.  But I can't, because the person in question would see it.  So time to start writing again. I had a new client come in today.  He and I were born three days apart, at the same hospital.  In those days, new moms stayed in the hospital for a week, so we were almost certainly in the nursery together.  We went to high school together.  He was gorgeous, a football player, in student government, super popular.  I was none of those things.  I doubt he knew I existed then. My high school class has a Facebook page, and I have really enjoyed getting to know a lot of my classmates better.  This particular one has a wicked sense of humor and is very knowledgeable about politics.  He has made vague references to a checkered past, but I didn't know much about it. Yesterday an IRS revenue officer knocked on his door, and today he was sitting in my office.  ...