My mind is preoccupied with taxes at the moment. I am surrounded by W2s, 1099 MISCs, crumpled receipts, dog-eared statements, and other inscrutable financial papers. It's an endless barrage of eye-strain inducing numbers and brain exhausting calculations, so I've coined the term "a Stalingrad of tax forms."
And on this battlefield of taxes, the best that can be hoped for are the most Pyrrhic of victories. Maybe I won't owe so much this year. I might even be able to claim a small refund. Perhaps my return won't be frog-marched off to the gulag to be mercilessly audited by an IRS inquisitor. Such is the grim accounting of tax time combat.
But God knows the little world of my personal economy is not so complex. A mediocre income, a few feeble investments, and a mortgage payment to deduct. It should not require the cloak-and-dagger strategy of a crack commando unit to write a few pennies off here and there. Yet my return generates so much paperwork it would overwhelm the Nazi war machine.
I suppose I could hire a tax professional to file my taxes for me. But that's a type of Stockholm Syndrome. Whatever. I won't be donating to the Presidential Election Campaign Fund, that's for sure. Not unless Mr. Trump calls a truce.
