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Why does it take so long for me to do my taxes? Why am I so unmotivated? It’s not like I don’t have any incentive, as I’m getting a decent refund.

Normally, if someone would say to me “Fill out this form and get these numbers to agree and I’ll give you $500”, I would get that done fairly quickly. I suppose to make the analogy more complete, that person first would have taken $5,000 from me.

I don’t like getting a refund in that it means I gave the government too much money. Every year that I get a refund, I increase my exemption by one. This year, I bumped it up by two since we added a child to the family.

It always made sense to have the exemptions correct so that I don’t give the government an interest-free loan. But now it makes even more sense, what with various states refusing to pay people their refunds. Why give the government an interest-free loan that they might not repay? Why give them more money than you need to, when you might not even get it back?

Another item from tax season: be very careful when buying individual stocks that you do not buy shares of a partnership unless that’s what you really want. Because if you buy shares of a partnership, such as Calumet Specialty Products Partners, then you get a Schedule K and have yet another form to complete for your taxes. So if there is an LP or LLP after the company name when you are looking at ticker symbols, then beware.

Or maybe you like filling out extra forms for your taxes. I, though, was unpleasantly surprised when the K-1 arrived in the mail.

“But since he did not have the means to repay, his lord commanded him to be sold, along with his wife and children and all that he had, and repayment to be made.”
– Matthew 18:25