Minerva's Last Day!

Today (April 14) is the last day to post your prompts for minerva_fest!

The prompt-claiming post will be made tomorrow -- and there are some great ones.

Remember, you don't need to post a prompt in order to claim one for the fest.

And you don't need to claim a prompt in order to post one.

Taxes Redux

Okay, so the other day I was all la-di-da about how I'd finished my taxes, and they were fairly painless, and I was getting money back, et-cetera, et-cetera.

Fast-forward to today, when the following tax-y things happened:

1. In the mail, I got a stack of official-looking documents from the Internal Revenue Service, saying that I didn't report all my capital gains in 2008 and that I owe them $265.

If you could see the state of my finances, you'd know how risible it is that I could have anything resembling "capital gains." To start with, before you can have capital gains, you have to have capital. I do have a small inheritance from my mother, but I haven't been gaining anything on it, I can tell you. So tomorrow I will call Financial Guy and see if any sense can be made of this. But since we're talking about the IRS, I suspect I should just send in the $265 and not wake the sleeping beast with protests.

2. One of my colleagues told me about something called the "Make Work Pay" program that gives tax credits to what sounds like most of the middle class. If he's right, I should get a $400 credit. I'll have to submit an amended return, though -- which is yet another lesson in the folly of doing anything before the deadline. If I had waited till the last minute, the way I usually do, instead of filing a whole four days early, then I wouldn't have to submit another return, because I would have found out about this plan before I filed.

Ah, well, the hell with taxes. Let's think about hp_beholder instead. It starts tomorrow!! T minus 12 hours and counting. . .