Our tax system sucks.

I hate how in order to correctly pay your taxes, you need to pay someone else...either that or invest hours of your own time doing it. Figuring out how much of a refund I will get is easy, how much of that I get for myself is up to debate. Ive gotten estimates from 5 places here in town, and not one of them will do my taxes for under $190. Sound ridiculous...well it is. Here's the approximate breakdown.

Federal return: $60 (two W-2's)
State Returns: $90 (I have to file returns in ND and MN, on top of that I need to complete
two reciprocity forms because Wal-Mart screwed up and didnt deduct ND
taxes when I moved to Fargo.
Education Credits: $20
Capital Gains/Losses/Stock Sale, etc: $20
Rollover of Capital Losses form (so i can offset income in coming years): $10

I find these to be absurd, especially when considering time. It's retarded that they all charge based on services they provide, when the time to do some of these is very short. To complete the Lifetime learning credit form on the systems they use it takes about two minutes. The extra cost for other W-2's that take just a minute or two is also retarded. All in all I probably will have to pay $200 to get my refund of approximately $2000...which doesnt sound bad, but thats $200 just to do something that the tax code says should be "convienant" and have "minimum compliance cost".

Im taking a tax class right now, the professor is really nice, and she says that these things totally go against what the tax code is trying to do, and also that charges are generally excessive and should be based on time. I havent learned alot in the class yet that applies to individual tax returns, but I have researched enough to where i basically know what needs to be done. But learning how to, and then actually doing, it...will lead to a large time investment. Then if i want to get my refund quick i will need to efile online, at a cost of like $10 and additional time to enter the return. Then the state ones will be even worse because I need "reciprocity forms", and to get a refund from MN and pay into ND. Which means I will lose money right away (to pay ND) before I get my other refunds. I'm pissed, at this, and a few other things. Like...

Qwest Communications. I got a letter from a collection agency saying i owe Qwest $146...but i cancelled the account from the house in August. I talked to a guy then who said it had been cancelled by someone else and that all was current. Then now i get a bill, i called and the guy said that there is no record of anyone accessing my account since June up until it was cancelled in October....wait, October....who the hell cancelled it in October....hell if i know, hell if they know...they have no idea, the only thing they know is that I owe them money. I'm also pissed because....

Ive been trying to get our deposit back from the house we were in for months, and the company will not even respond to me, they just ignore. Im sure Ive blogged it at some point but basically they didnt give us any of our deposit back and want us to pay in like $70. The sent us a "breakdown of charges" that consisted of crap they "fixed" (aka bought new for the people who live there now [also known as the owners grandchild and friends]). The major offenders were:
repair of front door: $200 - $200!!! what?! - they put a nice brand new freakin' door on there,
We had to live with a shitty ass door that made our entire entryway/dining
room freezing even with all the insulating we did.
repair of back door: $100 - same deal here
cleaning: $240 - When we moved into that place it was a F*cking mess, the manager was
supposed to fix a bunch of stuff, but never did, we sent registered letters and
made many phone calls which were ignored, to try to get these things fixed.

AND NOW...they try to charge US for fixing the crap that they rented to us with the promise that they would fix so we could live there. Does this make any sense...F*ck no! just like real estate renters in college towns like this, they make their money not by running a good business but by screwing over students who they know wont do anything about it. Well, I'll tell you what....they are going to "know" something soon, they are gonna know ...what it feels like to be sued, bitch! And they are going to know my wrath!...then hopefully they'll tell me about it so I can know my own wrath because as far as i know i dont have one.

So, what else....well, at least I have things to look forward to. There's the Queen concert, my birthday (the 25th for those of you who would like to send gifts), and now Im going to the Twins home opener on April 11th so I wont be completely depressed while most of you are in Vegas.

Im also getting a pet farely soon, possibly a bird (peach-faced lovebird), but more likely a lizard (an "emerald swift" to be specific)

I also get $500 for profit sharing program at Walmart (in March)

So lots of news, both good and bad. Mainly bad from my views though because the good things are anticipated and the bad were out of the blue.