I'm dreading Feb 23rd. I'm going with a friend of ours to do Mike's business taxes. He had just started his own company and 2014 would have been his first tax time. Hopefully in 3 weeks I'll be strong enough to handle it. Hopefully it will be one of happy memories.

I can see why you adore your mother - she sounds very sweet. I dreaded doing the taxes after Cliff died. It was one of his responsibilities, and he did not do a good job of it. I had my regular day job, and I had my own business, and he had his own business, and we had started a company with our older son. What a mess! And my records were in order and his were definitely not - and they were scattered everywhere. He was like that - brilliant but disorganized.

After slogging through it on my own, and then discovering from the IRS that I had not done them properly (luckily they gave me more back than I thought I was due), the lesson I learned was that I was better off paying a bit and having a professional do them. I did that the next year, and my tax specialist saved me $400, and I paid about $85 to have them prepared -- she more than paid for her own fee.

But besides the financial aspects of it, it helped me emotionally not to have to carry it all on my shoulders. It brought up memories good and bad when I tried it on my own. They say that couples usually fight about "money, sex, and the kids," so I can take some consolation that with us it was usually just the money part of that, but I had some bad memories associated with the money topic. I created income, he created debt. I made the money, he spent it. I did not want to relive all of that just to satisfy the IRS.

My advice is to get a professional tax preparer at least the first year. They can also help you get your records in order and then you will be better prepared for the following year if you decide to do them yourself - you will know what you will need.

While there are some good software packages out there to prepare your own, it really, truly is worth it to have a professional go through the process with you at least the first year. With the software packages, you basically still have to have an idea of every possible quirk in your situation and where those fit into the rules, the software, and its forms. My situation was not one of the nice, neat ones that the software works easily with. Some folks do quite well with them, but they were not useful for me. Plus if you add in the "Widda Brain" factor, it is easy to miss things and make mistakes.

@darjar0 - I am glad you have someone to go with you. My sister helped me, and I was glad I had her to lean on. I hope it goes okay for you.

Love and Hugs,
Martha

I would just like to echo Mary's comments ( and btw, it's refreshing to hear that you have some happy days now and then thrown in there :) )

When dealing with such a dastardly illness like cancer, it's pretty much a war of attrition, only the cancer will always recover, and you won't. I really admire anyone who has put up a ferocious ( yeah, that is the exact word I want to use, and I had to look up the spelling, lol ) fight against cancer because usually it's usually a fight that you can't win, only delay the outcome.

It says a lot about the character of the person, I think, and also how much they have to fight for. Love displays itself in many ways :)

Bob

Martha I completely agree about hiring it done! I do not ever do my own taxes, I do however keep very good record of expenses etc. Especially with us being on Cobra insurance and all the money it took just to get Ernie through his treatments. I always just kept saying it is only money.

Bob, I completely agree with you as to it shows the character of the person. Ernie was given a month when diagnosed and he fought with all he had for remission, and ended up surviving 22 months after diagnosis. To me that says that I was very blessed to have him in my life if only for the brief 6.5 years we were married.

Good luck Darjar0 I do hope that it doesn't bring too much pain and that there will be some laughter mixed in with the paperwork!

I agree with the "UGH". I started mine today. No business or anything too complicated for me though. I was always the one who did our taxes before with a computer program so I can handle it.
I had to type in that he was deceased though and it wasn't a happy moment for me.