Top Ten Tuesday: Tax Time

I love tax season.  I know, you don’t hear that very often.  But let me explain.

1. I love numbers.  For a few years there, I would do my taxes by hand but then still get them done so I could see how close I was to the right answer.  Why yes, I did give myself a test on taxes.  *sigh*  I know.  The geekness knows no bounds.
2. I love getting extra mail.  I know!  My life is boring.  But knowing I’m getting important! mail! and often! makes me happy during January.  I normally lo-uh-ove the mail but January has a special place in my heart.  I’ve been known to call companies on February 1st asking where in the world my 1099 was.
3. I love office supplies.  So organizing all the papers into categorized stacks and then putting one of those huge alligator clips on them makes me happy.  My kids love office supplies too but they get like 2 pieces of paper and try to use these huge clips when a paper clip would do.  But tax papers?  I NEED the big clip.
4. I get to make lists.  I love lists.  I make lists just so I can check things off.  I’m not even joking.  They say you get a little shot of adrenaline when you check something off.  Clearly I need as much excitement as I can in my day.
5. I get to print and highlight lists.  The geek in me loves running reports in mint.com, paypal.com and our bank so I can find deductions.  I like downloading the exports and formatting them in Excel and printing them and highlighting them.  How often do you really get to use a highlighter for a legit reason these days?
6. Finding deductions is like a scavenger hunt.  Once I have all these lists printed and highlighted I always go back to previous years and see what I’m missing. I search my email for other deductions I might have missed.  When I cull something up, it’s like I hit the jackpot.  YES!  Another deduction.  It’s like a game!  Try it!
7. I enjoy seeing if we met our giving challenge.  Our goal is always to give a higher percentage from the year before so I love that challenge to gather all the numbers and see if we met our goal.
8. Call my silly, but there’s a satisfaction I receive going to see our tax office.  It’s run by a local family in town that knows everyone else in town.  It’s in an office in a house.  The linoleum has to be from 1976.  The dad and daughter do the taxes and the wife answers the phone.  It’s just so homey and small town and I like the tradition of it.
9. But if I’m honest, the biggest reason I love tax season is since having kids, we usually get a hunk of change back.  Except for that one year I actually made money on the Internets and it physically hurt to write that tax check.  That year wasn’t fun.
10. And just to drive home the point, the very best part is having those returns randomly show up in my bank account.  It’s always so depressing to go into mint.com and see my bank account drain every single day but during tax season?  Surprise!  Random huge deposit in your account!

OK, now I promise I’m not just a money-hungry dork.  I’ll claim the dork part but that’s it.

Tell me, do you love tax season or hate it?

This post is linked to ohAmanda’s Top Ten Tuesday.