Taxes (and Death)

It's that time of year when you gather your W-2's, your 1099's, your WD-40's in triplicate for you, yourself and the government and start doing the math. Many of you probably Turbo Tax it. I prefer to Lea it. Conveniently, Lea lives in Vegas and this requires an annual personal visit. I s'pose I could just shoebox everything up and send it to her, but then she'd have to forge my signature and that's against the law. Few things scare me more than breaking the law. Flying. Spiders, maybe. Giant flying spiders definitely. If by killing a giant flying spider I broke the law, um, I'd do the time. I would be so thrilled that I had the nerve to kill a giant flying spider that I would sit in my tiny cold cell and eat pea soup and notch the days gone by in my giant flying spider skin belt. I am deeply frightened of the word audit. Not because I'm doing anything underhanded or trying to get away with something when I submit my tax return. Now that I have Lea, I worry less about that, but pre-Lea, just the thought of someone trying to make sense of what I make and how I make it made me shudder. If an auditor ever darkened my door, I would put my hands out for the cuffs. "You got me. I don't know what I did or how I did it, but you got me. Just don't look at those receipts. Or my handwriting." To me, auditing means going through everything with a fine tooth comb and TRYING to find mistakes. Maybe it isn't really like that. Maybe auditors are only looking for the good in people and we shouldn't judge. Maybe they have nice hair and a puppy and they like movies. But the questions they ask...oh the questions. "Why exactly did you expense Taco Bell on Tuesday the 24th of June?" "Who is 'Pooh Bear' and what does his facial correction surgery have to do with your marketing plan?" "So when you bought the camera, your intention was to use it for business purposes? Half of these videos are of you dancing in front of your Wii..." When you wear as many hats as I do throughout the year and sometimes people pay you for it (I have other clothes on, too!!!), it's a challenge to lay it all out in black and white. Having a day job, being an entertainer, a free lancer and a candlestick maker takes its toll on recordkeeping. I save receipts, but I save them in different places and then I move them from place to place over the 12 month span that is my tax year until finally, in the new year, they end up all in one place ready to be Lea's problem. I make spreadsheets, I explain everything, I log miles, I note expenses, I show my pennies earned. I know I've got it all there, but still, I fear the Reaper. I have total confidence in Lea, but in the end, I know it's me who is accountable. It's my own signature I'm forging. That's why sometimes when I'm flying somewhere, and I envision the plane being attacked by giant flying spiders and then happily, engulfed in flames, I think I can handle that. Just please don't audit me. I am a good citizen. I promise.