Procrastinators Anonymous

Your accountant must have the basic information about your income and expenses in order to do your taxes, and this only can come from you. He can't make it up for you. If he did and you were audited, he would be liable. He has to sign his name to your returns. I don't know what they do to accountants who knowingly defraud the government, but it can't be good.

There are ways an accountant can help you with this, but you have to get him the records. My accountant offered to go through my bank statements for me - I just had to get him the bank statements and tell him which accounts were personal, which were business, etc. In the end, I didn't take him up on this. I went through every statement myself, entered every freaking item into Quicken, and generated the income and expense reports that he needed to file my returns.

I'm also not very good at keeping my accounts separated, but I know what is what. If I buy a computer, it's a business expense, etc. In Quicken, you can use tags to mark each income and expense item as personal or business. It took a long time for me to catch up on that accounting - I was years behind - and I had to contact banks for some missing statements, but I did it. And then my accountant filed my returns.

A P&L statement is just a summary of income and expenses - actually less than the detailed report I was able to generate from Quicken. I don't think your accountant is unreasonable to ask for this. If you don't know how to give it to him, then tell him and ask for advice on how to proceed. You do have to be prepared for some unpleasant catch-up accounting. There is no way around it.

I know you've been working that for awhile, must feel great! Good for you

After joining PA I got caught up on personal taxes 2003-2008 and corporate 2004-2007 ... but now I've backslidden on corp return for 08, the last year I had a business. CPA says it's piling up $85/month in penalties so that won't be pretty.  Guess it's time I dealt with it. Thanks for the bump (I think!).

Welcome! So how did you do with your task?

I think you'll find that check-ins work best when they are right before and after the task. Have you seen the daily check-in threads?

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Procrastination is the grave in which opportunity is buried.

Complete tax form for friday Irs call [done]
put together other 2 documents for the call [done]
make call friday [done]
fax information [done]
Call to request tax transcripts for every year back to 2000 [done]
review transcripts back to 2000 [done]
Call to request tax transcripts for every year back to 1995
start printing out tax forms federal and state
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2002
2003
2004
2005
Review publications for years above for new laws and new tax credits

round up old free tax software

HOUSERECLAIMER

HR, if you were due refunds for years earlier than 7 years ago, forget it. They won't look back before that, and they won't give you any refunds, either. And you don't need to deal with messed up returns and possible owed taxes earlier than 7 years unless they tell you so. So it is probably a waste of your time to work on anything earlier than 1998. That's as far as the IRS will work on with me (thank God, because I'd only owe more!).

I haven't been getting many letters because I haven't filed at all, so they don't know I exist. The only thing I've been filing is state quarterlies, so naturally the nasty letter I got was from the state.

Nothing scary--but very disheartening to see thousands of $ worth of "what you owe". I see that they have put in penalties and interest that weren't there before, too. Very expensive procrastination! Calling CPA now.

At least you're breaking even. I'm not.

Neglect of my financial responsibilities is my biggest procrastination issue as well.

• Stay on top of expenses daily
• Enforce cash budgeting(no plastic)
• Process inbox, clean up paperwork
• Drop some unnecessary expenses
• Start paying on property tax before the end of the year
• Dig up tax information for 2002
• Order a recent credit report
• Continue payments on credit cards

That does'n seem to scary

I am no expert, to be sure, since I am WAY more broke than you are (there I go bragging again)...

..BUT, one thought:
the common definitions of gross (pretax) personal income - the figure for "AGI" on the bottom of the first page of the 1040, for average middle class people, or the bottom of Schedule C for us self-employed types (maybe if you're in ranching you use Schedule F, same thing I think) - anyway, these common definitions of income the tru figure for profit.

Unlike a corporation, you have to eat. You don't have a choice. A corporation can reinvest all its "profits". You cant. A corporation doesnt need shoes for the kids, gas to get to work, or a family car. You do. So there is an "overhead" for workers and self-employed people, that we pay taxes on as if it were income, but is in fact actually an expense.

One simple method to give a very rough accounting of home expenses - rent, utilities, gardening, phone lines, alarm system, everything - and deduct it all from AGI or Schedule C income, to see what youre really working with for food, clothes etc.

Oh and I would treat all auto expenses the same way, including gas, down payments, etc.

One has to collect these home and auto expenses ANYWAY, if one files on schedule C, since a portion is deductible. What I am saying is that from an operating management standpoint, auto and house expenses have to be deducted 100%. Profit is whats left, before taxes. Then you deduct the actual taxes youll have to pay. What's left is roughly "profit" the way corporations report it. it represents your source of savings, and also what you have to live out of.

An alternative for self-emplyed people is to do what management consultants recommend - which is to pay yourself a fixed salary, no matter what, and live out of that. What's left in the business after paying salary represents true business profit. The dismal truth is that if we did that, most of us would look at the actual paltry salary we could really commit firmly to pay ourselves - and quit.

I realize I am time-binging here, so see you later.