‘Tis the Season . . .
. . . either to be jolly, or to get a head start on your taxes - which currently is canceling out any jolliness the holidays might have generated for me.
I set out this morning to do a budget forecast for 2010. This is important since it will be my first full year of retirement and I need to set up distributions and withholding.
Throughout the day, I studied our spending habits, our real estate holdings, our potential income and all the little things that might happen to us that cost money. I used an Excel spreadsheet to analyze our special circumstances.
The odious task of how much I should withhold for the clowns in Washington and Sacramento to waste on their nonsensical pork projects depends on a forecast of next year’s tax liabilities. I found an on-line 2009 tax estimator at the TurboTax website, so I used it to forecast how much 2010 tax I should withhold. No problem, it did that just fine.
Then I opened Pandora’s Box - I doodled in the numbers for our 2009 return which I haven’t started.
OH SHIT!
Nothing like seeing a preview of the tax bite to blow away any holiday spirit I might have had. Oh well, I’ll just re-watch Bad Santa - some gratuitous blue humor dressed as the holiday spirit should lift mine.
By the way, the little TaxCaster® thingy is handy and easy to use. The image above is clickable for a close-up.
