Aidan/Emilia: Life & Taxes

Has anybody else ever blogged about how the Inn tends to change people in the middle of summer, disrupting their lives enough to trigger a job change or even a move, meaning that there's a lot you don't necessarily know about half the previous year when it comes time to file "your" taxes?  Probably not, because it's neither traumatic nor sexy, but it is a real pain in the neck. 

I must admit, I was kind of slow on the uptake, because it didn't really occur to me that the kids were not going to be my dependents until I started filling out forms.  Then it just sort of gets bigger and bigger.  I had never given much thought to the insurance card in my wallet, since I inherited a pretty darn healthy shape and have not had to go to the doctor, but it turns out that Emilia was on her father's insurance, so I have to get in touch with him to make sure I get sent the proper paperwork.  I had to dig through her computer to find out about the work study job she had during her senior year and get in contact with the University to get the pepper forms forwarded on. 

(Did these girls ever fill out change of address forms after graduating?  Now that I think about it, I don't remember ever seeing anything forwarded to this apartment, but figured maybe that was just kids their age doing everything online and not having mail to forward.) 

Rusty's situation was about the same as mine - part-time job we had to dig up, health insurance through Monica's parents, basically the same sort of deductions for rent.  She absolutely could not believe that all of this information got sent to the government, then back to us, and then that we had to check their math and send it back or else they'd just keep the extra money that had been deducted or gave penalties.  This is, to be fair, the correct reaction.

Katey's situation was a bit trickier - she was on her parents' health care but Kutter had picked up the company's when she started her job, and Katey, having apparently been dead-set against asking her parents for help, had worked a lot more during college, including for a place that had gone out of business, and either despite that or because it was a lot to keep track of, some of her records were sketchy (if there's any one thing that makes us remember that we are still ourselves deep down, it's that Katey was not nearly as detail-oriented as Kutter).  Tracking some things down took effort, and after the way Kutter's Christmas visit went, Katey's parents were less eager to help than Emilia's and Monica's. 

There was also the matter of what to do with the money that had been anonymously deposited in or bank accounts for the first few months, which amounted to just enough for each of us that it had to be included.  All told, we each wound up receiving refunds, although not really enough for any of us to splurge on anything.  Or, more likely, the next group, since the odds that these would be processed and deposited before we returned to the Inn was slim even before the cuts at the IRS.

Rusty did some math and figured the time spent on it was not exactly a great hourly wage, and asked what would happen if we hadn't bothered and just let the federal and state governments keep the excess.  Probably nothing, I said, but there might have been trouble if the deductions had been a hundred dollars off on the other direction, and it wouldn't be fair to let the next people living these lives catch that. 

This process all got started because the woman living my life sent me a message asking if I had anything other than my main W-2 to worry about.  She works in finance in her real life, and was at a big New York firm one upon a time, so my family's taxes was basically nothing difficult for her.  But, on the flip side, I do appreciate her making sure it would be nothing difficult for me. 

- Aidan/Emilia