The TaxMan Sucketh

As usual I’ve waited until the final week of tax season to settle up with ‘the man’; and this year I’ve noticed a trend that I found to be oddly disturbing. In the past I could e-file under what could be considered optimal filing conditions (short form…early in the season…etc); and it takes about 2-3 days for the I.R.S. to approve the tax return…and then another 2-5 days to receive a refund.

This year was a bit different; as we actually managed to score a pretty hefty tax bill. So I waited until the last possible minute ( for no real reason), and fired off our somewhat-complex return fully expecting the process to either meet or exceed the usual 1 week timeframe. Yeah…I was wrong. Within a few hours I received email confirmations from both federal and state tax agencies, letting me know that they approved of my filings; while I could hear slurping sounds as they direct debited the cash out of my bank account. Yeah, well…thanks. Now I’m sure that this mostly about timing… process… state of their systems…etc… but it sure is fun to think otherwise.