doing my tax

Yes, one of the things we just need to live through each year. I remembered days when I needed to dig out all the old documents to find my cost basis for each stock I sold. Things got more complicated if the stocks went through split, multiple times through out the years... And if you invest in mutual funds and reinvest the dividends, you probably have an idea how painful that is, trying to locate share's cost basis, when we normally trade in terms of dollar amount instead of shares.

Thanks to better technology each year, I am pleased that I no longer need to go through those trouble anymore. Most of my financial services provide me details of break down on securities acquired date, sold date, how many shares, the cost I paid, the proceeds I made etc. *IF* I just trust their data. So far, I have not noticed much problem. A good thing, indeed.

I also liked turbo tax online that I could see my past return data. I tried out the premier version this year. One thing I was not satisfied was that the investment spread sheet where I enter data myself, I would really prefer the columns match exactly as those on form 1040, schedule D, heh. That could save me some brain power, especially when I got tired of all the numbers and they started dancing on their own...

If you have used turbo tax, you know there is that tax number on top, indicating how much you owe or how much refund you would get. As I entered data, both numbers (federal and state) changed. I found it a bit exciting to see the numbers jumping quickly, going up, going down, up, down, up, down... especially when some big numbers were inputted. It reminded me of the slot machine somehow, only that I would never be able to hit a jack pot through filing a tax return, heh. It might be a good incentive to have people file earlier, say, "if you are the 1000th person to file for the year, your refund doubles or the amount you owe gets reduced to 50%", ha! I guess my brain was kind of tinted with the tax numbers.

Nevertheless, "thanks to" the terrible economy, the loss in investments... I am looking forward to see some money coming back to my pockets.