Tax Day
Normally I’ve filed the income tax as soon as all the W-2’s and or 1099’s showed up, usually in early February. The refunds have come back, and possibly spent, by the end of February. This year getting a couple of those forms took a lot longer. All my stuff was available by the end of January. For her the ASCO retirement 1099 was on time, but both the Social Security and Edward Jones’s 1099s were AWOL. And they were mainly because of Donna’s death. The easy way to get those forms from both the SSA and EJ would have been to go online and log into her account, but I couldn’t because both places shut her accounts down as soon as I informed them of Donna’s passing.
By mid-February I contacted Edward Jones and they said they’d mail it to me. When it didn’t show in a week I called and asked. The Office Manager said she remembers mailing it, but I never got it, so she said I’ll mail another that very day. I waited patiently by the mail box for the next 10 days with no letter arriving. I called the office again and got the assistant this time, so I asked if they had the right address for me, thinking maybe it was going to Klamath Falls. She said, “Nope, we have the Fairview address. Let me see if I can just send you a PDF of it through the Edward Jones messaging system.” Five minutes later I downloaded the form. When I looked at the mailing address it was correct, but it was a very important bit, the Unit 1.
Social Security followed with a variation on the multiple phone call theme. My first attempt resulted in a three hour wait time for a CSR, I managed by keeping one earbud in from the phone, so I would know when they came back, while I listened to music or enjoyed mindless car videos with the naked ear. I explained what I needed to her and she said that she would take care of it. Ha! Three weeks later, still no SSA 1099-SM. My next thought was maybe I should visit the local Portland to do this face to face. I found the local office number online and called to see about getting an appointment. The person I got said, “Oh, you don’t have to do that, I can get a copy mailed to you.” I expressed my trepidation at that plan, so she gave me her direct extension and said I don’t get it in a week call back. Three days later it arrived in my mailbox.
I have been doing the taxes using H&R Block’s Tax Cut program since at least 2005 and I have e-filed ever since it was available. After e-filing the federal, Tax Cut informed me that I would have to print and mail in my Oregon return because they would not except e-file if one person had died during the tax year. So, I had to print out all 8 pages of the Oregon form, the 5 pages of the Federal and all ten 1099s. Midway through, I ran out of paper. Oh well, I needed to go out and buy some 10×13 manilla envelopes to mail all this paper in any way.
After printing everything out I went online to the Oregon Department of Revenue to see what I needed to file on paper when I noticed a little video about E-file for free using Direct File Oregon, so I wondered if that would let me do it online. What the heck, let’s give it a try. It seemed to let me direct file, there wasn’t any alerts telling me no. I just checked and the Revenue Online site is saying “Processing.” Stay tuned.