Tuesday, March 07, 2006

Tax Man

I saw my tax man tonight. He's a retired IRS auditor who knows his stuff and keeps abreast of all the changes. This time of year, he's also one of my favorite people.

Before we found him, we went to a CPA with a nice office, good furniture, dishy blonde receptionist and lots of expensive fake plants. And we wrote lots of big checks to the IRS and to him. Guess he had to pay for his plants, receptionist and office.

A guy my husband was working for heard my husband moaning about how much money we were dishing out and recommended our Tax Man. So we tried him.

Tax Man said that the difference between him and the CPA was that the CPA did a very conservative return, and he did an aggressive one. Both legal, both perfectly reasonable, but different styles.

He did that year's taxes and we got money back! And he redid the tax forms the CPA had done and we got LOTS of money back. We've only had to pay a little since we got him (one of the 1099's had gone missing and we didn't realize it). But he does this now that he's retired and enjoys it.

Last week, I called to ask which day. What do you mean? you might ask.... well, this is how we get our taxes done. The Tax Man comes down to our little town and hangs out for a couple of hours at a funky little local diner and all the folks he does taxes for bring their stuff to the restaurant and have dinner. All through tax season, he and his daughter come down here and have dinner one night a week and his clients come have dinner and drop off their tax information. Seems like some years it's Thursday, other years it's Tuesday. This year it's Tuesday. So I pack up the tax info, my husband and my son, and we go out to dinner.

Tax Man is in a wheel chair and has some paralysis, but he's funny and interesting and my son just loves him. After we got settled in our booth, sonny-boy runs over to Tax Man's table and gives him a big hug. Which he gets back. Later, after he's done talking with his other clients, he rolls over to us and we chat for a bit until the next client comes in. I've already walked over with my tax stuff and given it to his daughter, so the chat is just chat.

I don't know what we'll do once Tax Man decides to stop doing returns. Not only will I have to figure out how to do them myself, but we'll miss the Tax Man and the yearly ritual.

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