Hunting Happiness

All our state and federal tax returns were completed and mailed on Monday the 14th.  We paid around $400 to have them prepared by a CPA but that was expected and well worth it.  Our taxes are fairly complicated as both of us have multiple sources of income including side businesses.  Our accountant gives us additional reports breaking down income types and amounts, and the same with expenses.  It also gives comparisons of this year versus previous years in a number of categories.  We also review our 1040 and sundry other forms in detail.  In this way I feel we don’t lose any visibility into our financial situation that might otherwise happen because we outsource tax preparation.

Now the “bad” news.  We ended up writing checks to various governmental arms for nearly $10K.  Fortunately we had saved a large chunk for this occasion so it wasn’t a problem but it will still be very depressing to see a hit to our net worth at the end of April.   As I mentioned in our March net worth update, the dip in net worth will be due to factors including income tax payments and additional business-related expenses.

The vast majority of our income had at least some tax withheld.   However, I lean toward under withholding because I don’t like loaning the government money at 0% interest.  We also take every other measure available to reduce taxable income including maxing out retirement options.  Did anyone out there write a bigger check than us?  What were the factors that led to it?