Tax Time.

Yes, your eyes are seeing correctly the most recent snowfall, which took place last night, during our slumber and a bit keeps coming down this morning. This afternoon the prediction is for above seasonal temperatures and sun. Welcome to Canada! Where the weather can change in a matter of just a few hours. I think it looks pretty but I truly can wait to see green leaves and new sprouts coming up in our gardens. Soon I hope!

It's Tax Time here. We have always done our own taxes and the last decade has been so much easier with the online tax programs. But last year, we hired an accountant as our taxes have become a bit more complicated with a number of streams of income, a variety of items we can claim and then our rental house. I've heard that many people do not claim their rental house(s) but I don't cherish the idea of being dishonest to save a few dollars. We brought in income, we'll pay the tax if needed. Last year, we both got lovely tax refunds and we're hoping this year for the same or at the very least, a break even. We don't count on a tax refund each year ~ for us, it's just extra funds. We've only had to pay once and it was small and we knew ahead we'd have to. 

My hope was to have all our receipts calculated and put into envelopes to drop off at our accountants' office today. However, with the snow and icy roads, I'll take it in after we get back from our holiday. We leave on Sunday and return home on the 2nd of April. I'll take it in on the 3rd and he'll likely have it down and ready for signatures that Friday. The deadline in Canada is April 30th, so we have lots of time. All is in order, as you can see above with our Art Studio serving as a temporary sorting station last night. I'll put everything into envelopes today and back into the box they were stored in. I love having an accountant now. It was so freeing last year to just hand over our documents and 2 days later, it was all done for us. Worth the fees to be less stressed. 

The rest of today will be packing, cleaning the house, sorting laundry, paying bills and catching up on emails. Tonight we'll chill and relax. Tomorrow we will pick up my mom, meet my brother (who has flown in from the coast to see Michelle Obama speak in the big City today) for lunch, visit and enjoy our time together, then take mom back to her place, head to the big City for an event tomorrow night, then head home for a couple of hours of sleep, wake up, shower, zip up our suitcase and off to the airport we go for 3:30 a.m. on Sunday. On the plane @ 5, landing on the island @ 8:40 a.m., pick up our rental car at the airport, drive to the Ferry and we should be on our little slice of Heaven by lunchtime for a week of no stress, no traffic lights, no Starbucks/commercialism. Just peace and quiet and a much needed and well deserved break.  

Any snow in your region today?

Is it Tax Time for you yet?

Tension Gone!!

After cleaning the house today in preparation for New Year's Eve and creating a little corner in my art studio to sort through our tax documents to be entered into the computer, I decided to try and call CRA aka Canada Revenue Agency. The computer crash has been a worry and I'm not sleeping well, upset that I'm getting behind. I was going to tackle all of this next week but because it's creating tension in my life, decided to at least try to call and see if I could settle myself down. 

Imagine my great surprise to hear a very friendly voice at the other end on the afternoon of New Year's Eve. I thought perhaps they would be closed a bit early but my call was answered by Nick and he was wonderful. I explained my dilemma, telling him I'm worried and not sleeping well and he reassured me that there is no time limit on what I am trying to do, to set it aside until we have our system back up and running, and best of all, to sleep well tonight knowing I have nothing to worry about! 

What a great relief! I still have some work ahead of  me and will create my own deadlines but the absolute relief in knowing that there is no time limit and I have not breached any regulations is so freeing. 

Can't wait to sleep well tonight! Thank you Nick!!

Tense!

Our desktop computer crashed last month. Not a big deal, as we barely use it, except that our taxes are on there. Taxes for past years and stuff we need for this year's upcoming filing. A friend of ours came over one night and retrieved everything off that he could get for now. He found most of our documents and pictures but wasn't sure if he got it all. Put it on one of our external hard drives so we could start going through it all to see what survived. We may still need to take it in for a complete clean where the hard drive will be opened up. Til then, we're trying to piece together the tax info we need. 

Tonight we decided it was time to see where we're at for retrieval of the files. I was so excited to see all our video files and pictures are there! Documents that are important to us are there too but not sure if we found them all. The tax stuff was hard to find but then we found a file he had put everything in to. Some we can see and some are still not open for us as the disks for each tax year from the program we use have been upgraded, so I need to call the software company to see what to do. I may have to go back to our paperwork to gather all the documents that were used to create each file and start over. Or take it all to an accountant! Ugh, I hate stuff like when we're so very careful with our funds. But in the end, I just need it all fixed so I can stop worrying about it and being so tense! After all this is done, a holiday may be in order to unwind from the stress!! Even just a little weekend away to celebrate the end of it all once we have it all sorted!

How do you handle stress like this?

Any tips you can share?

Relief.

The charitable organization I created with my family and a dear friend was selected for a review recently. After operating for 16 years without any issue with our finances, we did have a conflict with the process of reporting T4's after discovering our former treasurer, an accountant and volunteer, had messed up the books a bit. Nothing illegal and all funds are accounted for. However, she failed to submit the proper documents in a timely fashion, did not report to us that she had not sent them in and then moved while this was happening, so we found out after she was gone and not reachable. I've spent time over the last year with my new, paid administrator trying to fix it all and when the Canada Revenue Agency (hereby referred to as the CRA) called us and offered a review to get on back track, we said "Yes!"

After our initial call, I started to get frantic about having the right documents in the right order. What if we fixed it but we did it wrong? What if they find something we didn't catch? So  many worries and I lost a lot of sleep. I like to have life in order and this drove me crazy, especially because we were contacted in January and the first available appointment was not until May. My board was not worried, my family was not worried but for some reason, I was beside myself, secretly thinking that at the end of the day, I'd be behind bars and my charitable organization stripped of it's worthy status.

Well, I am quite the silly worrier, aren't I? The CRA guy came on Tuesday and he was not just tall, light and handsome, but he was so sweet! And at the end of the day, not only was I not in jail and my organization in good standing, but we have a new way to calculate payroll in a simpler fashion and we were provided with a ton of accolades for working hard, in a timely way to fix the errors the accountant made. He loved the system I had created with binders and spreadsheets (instead of files) and even took a picture to show other volunteer groups. He shared with me how some organizations have gotten in to deep water and said it was a joy to visit with us because we were a very minor issue compared to most visits he has. I was relieved that all was well and proud I had worked so hard, with the support of my family and board of directors to maintain our status. To me, losing our charitable status would be like a death. The shame would be too much to bear and it would be news that I would not want the world to know but unfortunately, in Canada, when charities lose their status, it's big news!

So here we are, set for the future, with our records in perfect order and no worries for me to carry! Worth the work but hopefully, a process we will never have to endure again.