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Fantasia in Tax TimeApril 04, 2006 Having reconciled three months' worth of bank statements yesterday I now know that my credit card and checking account entries for calendar year 2005 are up-to-date and accurate. There's nothing, in other words, standing between me and Form 1040 except telling Quicken to print out an income and expense report for 2005. Nothing, that is, but today's date. It's April 4. April 15 is still 11 days off. Could I look myself in the mirror if I got my taxes done this early? Would I perhaps feel compelled to at least match this alarming performance next year? Sobering questions both. Besides, I went to the dentist this morning and experienced one of the nastiest fillings of my life. The good news is that the filling -- a medicated deep-down job that's supposed to calm the nerve so the drillmeister can put in a permanent filling two months from now -- seems to be doing its job. (If it doesn't, there might be a root canal in my not-too-distant future.) The bad news is that I can't take it off on Schedule A. I've never filed a Schedule A. Even in my year of two retina reattachments, my medical expenses didn't equal the standard deduction. Which is, come to think of it, actually good news, but everything gets screwy around tax time. In the last 24 hours, talk on my copyediting e-list turned to the office-in-home deduction. Some freelancers take it; others do not. For about five seconds I considered the possibility, then I got real. I do my own taxes. I, the editor who fixes prose for a living, am chronically flummoxed by the instruction book for Form 1040. Supposedly the instructions are written in plain English. Perhaps I am living in a parallel universe where un-plain English is spoken and edited. I do know -- from colleagues who have been told as much by their accountants or tax preparers or tax-adept spouses -- that in IRS-speak "office in home" means a distinct, dedicated space that is used entirely for work. Hah, I say. Hah, I say again. The chair that I sit in when I edit hardcopy manuscripts is also the chair I sit in to eat breakfast or supper -- when I don't eat while working on the computer. My editing supplies (Post-it notes, a sheaf of red pencils, my boombox remote) rest on the table that also holds my microwave, my toaster oven, and my hot plate. Notes to myself I affix with a magnet to the refrigerator, which is a few inches to my right. Is this an office or a kitchen? Neither, I hasten to assure the town board of whatever: this apartment is not supposed to have a kitchen, because it is not supposed to be an apartment. When the IRS thinks "office," it seems, it thinks of desks and cubicles and doors that shut. My editor friends work at their kitchen tables, on the sofa, on the floor, in bed. If we wrote the rules and regs for the office-in-home deduction, they would be more flexible and make more sense. At the very least there would be a standard office-in-home deduction for all of us who can't begin to figure out what percentage of our dwellings are work-related. If my horsey friends wrote the rules and regs for Schedule A, all our board, feed, farrier, and veterinary bills would be deductible as medical expenses, up to the amount we would be spending on shrinks if we didn't have the horses. Rhodry is my only shrink, and he does the job for cookies. Maybe he'd be willing to do my taxes?
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