Taxman

"Don't ask me what I want it for. Be thankful I don't take it all..."

Since my wife never pays enough tax, and I always end up paying it for her, I went ahead and filed separately this year. This was good. I got back a few thousand of my tax dollars and this helped to defray some of divorce costs. But I knew that sooner or later she would figure out that it is tax time. After all, she is no dummy.

Last night it dawned on her. She found me in the basement watching Desperate Housewives. She was holding her tax information. She thrust the papers toward me and asked if I would figure out her tax return for her.

I had really hoped that she would just go to an accountant, but something in me thought it might be interesting to see the look on her face when she finds out that she still doesn't withhold enough money each payday. So I agreed to plug her numbers into TurboTax and see what numbers popped out, followed by the blood vessel in her forehead popping.

It took about half and hour to run the Unfaithful-Wife-Filing-Separately return, and also the Unhappily-Married-Filing-Jointly return for comparison. Even I was surprised at the result. Looking at her numbers, I whispered Ouch--that's gotta hurt, and brought the printed results upstairs to her.

This year, instead of getting half of a refund from my taxes, she owes $3,000, plus a penalty for underpaying her tax. Nice. I have to admit that it felt good for a second to show her why I have nagged her for 8 years to have more taxes withheld. For 8 years she withheld as little as possible so that her paycheck was larger, and then I made it up with my taxes.

She was shocked. She was actually humbled for a few minutes. $3,000! Seems like I was right after all. She was not sure what to do. Here it is, only days away from April 17th, and yet it is months away from her taking most of my retirement money (because she still hasn't signed the settlement papers).

Then I showed her what our return would be if we filed jointly. In that scenario, I would have to pay back to the IRS $900 of my return that I received recently. She figured out the solution quickly. Since $900 is less than $3,000, she would offer to pay me the $900 if I would amend my return and make it joint.

I can do that. I probably shouldn't, but I will. Al tells me to charge a $100 as a gratuity, but I think the image of her bloodless face was enough of a tip for me. But she better pay me.

Our Stuff

Meanwhile, I am still waiting for her lawyer to get back with the last version of the settlement. My wife wanted a two month grace period to live in the house for free after I pay her a huge chunk of money. I insisted that one month is more than enough. Still waiting on that.

Now she is arguing about the furnishings. We had agreed before on everything, but now her list of items to take is expanding. She wants more furniture, even though I paid for most of it. She let me have the exercise equipment with a sarcastic comment to "not wear it out" (since I've always looked at exercise as something to avoid). And I told her she could keep the king size bed, with the same comment that she not "wear it out." (Thanks Dale)

It's funny, because she always kept her money separate. But I paid for the furniture, and when her credit cards were max-ed out, I paid those off too--three times. And yet she wants to take most of those items and my retirement. But I don't object. She can take everything if she will just Go.

But she is in no hurry. She lives for free while I live in the basement. But pretty soon there will be a court date set and she will want to sign everything to avoid that.