Sunday Newscape Magazine

So it’s almost April 15, and my marriage will soon be undergoing its annual tax trial by fire.

Oddly enough, my husband and I usually prepare our joint return jointly. Being upstanding citizens eager to help finance large banker bonuses, we begin in February with serious tax planning discussions such as this:

My husband: “We should start working on our taxes soon. “

Me: “Yes, we should.”

By March, our conversation has taken on an impressive tone of urgency.

My husband: “We really should start working on our taxes. “

Me: “Yes, we really should.”

Now, in early April, it’s crunch-the-numbers time, and we finally mean business.

My husband: “I mean business here. We definitely need to do our taxes.”

Me: “I mean business too. Isn’t American Idol on tonight?”

Like college students, we will actually get down to business just hours before the deadline, pulling an all-nighter on April 14. My man will boot up the computer, load the same tax software that apparently allowed our new Treasury Secretary to get creative with his returns, and prepare to participate in the mysterious process that funds our federal government.

That’s also the process that has given pigs – innocent producers of pork – a bad name. What did the poor pigs ever do to deserve being compared to members of Congress?

While my spouse mans the keyboard, my job is to hover behind him while peering at the screen and repeatedly asking encouraging questions such as “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

In February or even in March, this would not bother my man too much. But In the wee hours of April 15, my question will cause vital veins in his neck to bulge and beads of sweat to appear on his forehead.

Things will get even worse when he asks me for our receipts.

“What receipts?” I’ll respond. “I thought you were keeping up with the receipts!”

I’m being snide, of course. I’ve long been the caretaker of the receipts, and I’ve developed a highly sophisticated system generally known as the toss-everything-in-a-grocery-bag method of accounting. This system would work just fine if my other half would only remember to actually place his receipts in the designated brown bag. It’s a double-ply bag, by the way. No one can accuse me of being careless.

At this point of the night, we usually end up having a tense and high-decibel debate about which one of us is more irresponsible. He will throw the opening punch, so to speak, by telling me my accounting leaves a lot to be desired.

I’ll counter with a snide comment about his inability to comply with even my simple sack system. I’ll point out that I find wadded up receipts all over the place – in his pants pocket, in the car, even in barely recognizable form in the dog waste in the back yard. (Our dog apparently prefers the brightly colored ones.)

Despite our discord, we will persevere, and some time on April 15th, a document resembling a valid tax return will be printed, signed by us and mailed with great enthusiasm to the IRS.

Later that day, my husband and I will probably go out for a drink. We’ll apologize to each other and make all kinds of promises about how we’ll start earlier next year and do a better job of record-keeping. But I’m hanging on to my grocery bags.

© Jackie Papandrew, All Rights Reserved www.jackiepapandrew.com