I am a simple girl. I work for a pharmaceutical company as an administrative assistant. I like spending time with friends and family, and I have several hobbies. On weekdays I learn how to speak Norwegian. It’s one of my favorite after-work activities.
Being somewhat young and active, I’m curious about a lot of things in life. As a lot of girls of my age I like shopping too. However, for a “therapy” like this I need to save some money. A salary of an administrative assistant is not too bad, but it doesn’t really let me go wild with my guilty shopping pleasure. I managed to learn quite a few ways of saving money, and one of these ways is doing taxes myself. Why do I ultimately need to pay $150-$300 to a person that will do my taxes in the end of the year? We all know that there is plenty of free resources online to do this complicated yet simple in my case task. I’m not married, and I don’t have any mortgage, investments, self-employed income and other things that I don’t even know about. Yes, I made some donations last year, had unreimbursed employee expenses and other little things that I need to show on my tax return, but I’m sure I can do it myself. I’ve done it myself for so many years. It’s not hard at all. You just go online, type all your information and the system leads you through the process. Thirty minutes and boom, your Tax Return is done! You just saved $300 that you definitely can use for yourself.
So, I just met with my friend Roxana for a shopping spree. Fall sales boost my mood for sure and the fact that I saved $300 on tax preparation makes me feel even better.
While we were shopping Roxana told me that this online software didn’t separate HSA (Health Saving Account) from the income amount for one of her clients at work. Roxana is an enrolled agent and works for a CPA firm. She noticed that when she amended the Tax Return for that person, working on some other minor changes. Now when I’m thinking about my Tax Return I realize that I had about $5K in HSA, which wasn’t supposed to be taxable. My tax bracket is between 20% and 25%, which means that I just paid an extra $1000 in taxes to IRS and another $300 to the state.
My shopping spree could have had a much bigger budget than $300. I’m coming to Roxana’s office tomorrow to amend my tax return and receive a much needed refund. I want to go shopping next weekend! 🙂
