It's that time of year.

No, not that time we get the warm and fuzzy feeling of the holidays with Figgie Puddings, eggnog and candles all a glow.  I'm talking the dreaded gathering last of year's paperwork in anticipation of getting my income taxes done.  Man...I hate this boring job.  I know, I know, I probably make too much of this considering I am such a 'neat freak' when it comes to keeping paperwork.  But, I think the IRS say, we should keep paperwork for at least seven years; so I do. Shoot, I've still got the first Income Tax Report I even made out.  Actually, my dad did all the work; I simply signed the bottom of the form.

I'm a real 'stickler' when it comes to my taxes...mostly because of all the horror stories I've heard over the years of what the IRS can do to a person if they don't like what you've reported, or if they think you've happened to cheat.  I have friends who've been audited several times, things have always worked out for them, still it would scare the pants off me if I were informed the IRS was going to audit me. Thank goodness I do keep pretty good records, so if I do get audited I can back up what I reported. Trust me, if I made a mistake it would be by accident and not on purpose.  You know the song "Whatever Lola Wants, Lola Gets" that's how I feel about the IRS "Whatever the IRS wants, the IRS is gonna' get."

Once I'm happy with my paperwork to go with my return I then delve into all the receipts etc. I've accumulated over the past year, I throw away some of them and file the others.  Then I go to the back of each file and dispose of the oldest year in the file and shred those papers to bits. Boy, does my paper-shredder get a good workout that day.

I love when I get paperwork that states "This is a permanent record, do not destroy."  How simple is that?  You get it, you store it and you can forget about it.  I would probably do that with every slip of paper I get, were it not for the fact by now I would have storage boxes up around my earlobes. However, it's interesting to compare record against record over the seven year time span.  For instance how much my utility bills, insurances and property taxes have gone up over the years, sometimes it pretty shocking.  How come these figures never go down?  Wouldn't it be wonderful if they did?

Anyway, I think I'm about ready to start putting last year's figures onto the worksheets I've made for myself, shoot, I might even get my 'gumption' going and get my taxes done way ahead of the April deadline.  Or, maybe not.

Yep, it's that time of year, stupid, boring paperwork.