Death and Taxes

I got a present today.  I am touched beyond words.



Something lost in translation there, comrades.

In Soviet Russia, LiveJournal registers in YOU!

But yes, it was 20 years ago (a year from) today that I first stuck a toe in the waters of blog. Almost 6,800 entries are preserved here on Dreamwidth, which I joined a little over five years later and then imported most if not all from the prior one. Another 693 posts went onto the baseball blog there, which I rarely post to these days and never bothered to find a new home for.

I made this the main site for my entries after LJ's eventual Russian owners went crazy in the Putin some years back, but until January of 2022 I default-clickied the little box that cross-posted my entries to the old site for the benefit of, well, I'm not sure who. Then things got funny in the code, and Boris and Natasha began blocking cross-posts from Dreamwidth- first occasionally, and then permanently.  My count for the original Captains Blog has been stuck on 6,496 since my last finger-flicking to Putin back last February 18th. (The profile there says I last updated it a year ago tomorrow, but that may have been an edit or a change of a privacy setting, or just the KGB poking around.)

I thought about doing an LJ-only post or five to get that total to an even 6,500, but it hardly seems worth the bother now.  I used to check my friends page there now and again for the few that never migrated to my current site- or, in the case of at least one Good Guy there, has moved to Dreamwidth and is "friends but we don't call it that here" with me but his DW entries don't show up on my "reading page" for some reason ::waves at oxymoron67::  But things in Friendsland are now even weirder in general back in Soviet Livejournalstan.  These days, my "friendspage" consists almost entirely of a handful of old RSS feeds, mostly from people who I don't even follow anymore- and to the RSS feed of this Dreamwidth blog that I put on LJ some years back for anyone who couldn't access it over here. 

As if that isn't itself "not enough," my access to reading friends' entries there simply ends after about two weeks.  My styleset there is set to display the 20 most recent entries, with a "previous" link at the bottom to show the previous 20. It used to then have "previous previous" ones letting you go back to 40 back, 60 back, and onward to infinity if you were bored enough. Now, though, "skip 20" is as far back as I can go on my own friendspage. Older entries are there- turns out oxymoron67 did just post over the weekend ::waves again::, and his earlier entries can be looked at going back way past 20 (10 at a time in  his page's style), but only by going to his own page to do it.

I've given serious consideration to just deleting the whole thing and making this site the exclusive online source of captainsbloggery on the Interwebs. But that would likely kill off the baseball blog, or at least my ability to post to or edit it, so until I figure out something else to do with that content, I'll just enjoy my 19th anniversary in peace.

And a lot of quiet.

----

While April 17th is an obscure, me-only observance, April 15th is much better known. Even in the Greatest White reaches of North America, an expat of both New York and LJ, and friend of the much mentioned oxymoron67 ::waves atwarriorsavant:: sent out warm Canadian wishes over the weekend to those of us below the Hat Line who had to observe Tax Day on April 15th.

Except we didn't.  When it falls on a weekend or holiday, it's extended to the next business day.

So today, right?

Wrong again, adjusted gross income breath. 

For April 15th, or the first weekday following its occurrence on a weekend, is recognized as "Patriot's Day" in many US jurisdictions, including DC and Massachusetts. (The latter is also tied to the running of the Boston Marathon on this particular day each year.)  So the Tax Gods have given us until midnight tomorrow to file, and in the case of the self-employed ::waves at self::, pay.

Or more, as it turns out, for those of us in Erie County and a few others that had the blizzard back in late December. Good ol' Grampa Joe announced a few weeks ago that our deadline to both file our 2022 taxes, and pay any balance due, has been extended to May 15th:

New York winter storm and snowstorm victims now have until May 15, 2023, to file various federal individual and business tax returns and make tax payments, the Internal Revenue Service announced today.

 

The IRS is offering relief to any area designated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) as a result of storms that occurred between Dec. 23 and Dec. 28, 2022. This means that individuals and households that reside or have a business in Erie, Genesee, Niagara, St. Lawrence and Suffolk counties qualify for tax relief. Other areas added later to the disaster area will also qualify for the same relief. The current list of eligible localities is always available on the Tax Relief in Disaster Situations page.

The tax relief postpones various tax filing and payment deadlines that occurred starting on Dec. 23, 2022. As a result, affected individuals and businesses will have until May 15, 2023, to file returns and pay any taxes that were originally due during this period.

This includes 2022 individual income tax returns due on April 18, as well as various 2022 business returns normally due on March 15 and April 18. Among other things, this means that eligible taxpayers will have until May 15 to make 2022 contributions to their IRAs and health savings accounts.

In addition, farmers who choose to forgo making estimated tax payments and normally file their returns by March 1 will now have until May 15, 2023, to file their 2022 return and pay any tax due. The May 15, 2023, deadline also applies to the quarterly estimated tax payments, normally due on Jan. 17, 2023, and April 18, 2023. This means that individual taxpayers can skip making the fourth quarter estimated tax payment, normally due Jan. 17, 2023, and instead include it with the 2022 return they file on or before May 15.

Thanks, Joe! 

Now talk to Grumpy Ol' Gramma Kathy, wouldya? Because New York State has been resolute in NOT going along with the deadline extensions:

But the state Department of Taxation and Finance is sticking with April 18 as its deadline for filing state returns.

"We encourage any taxpayers who are unable to complete their returns by the April 18th deadline to request an automatic extension," said Ryan Cleveland, a spokesman for the state Department of Taxation and Finance.

Paul Coleman, a financial planner with Level Financial, said it would be ideal for taxpayers if the state also extended its deadline in the counties where IRS has set the May 15 deadline.

"If they do not, it's not a huge help because any accountant and any tax preparing software is going to figure out your federal [tax return] before they import that information into the state return," Coleman said. "You still end up having to have that federal return done in order to have the state return done."

Despite lobbying from tax professionals and the support of at least one Western New York state senator, Albany is sticking to its greedy guns. The state tax website puts a link about the blizzard right at the top, but not to announce a matching extension. No, they say, you can request the same automatic six-month extension you could have if it had been sunny and 72 back in December. 

Just one problem. Or two, rather:

If you use computer-based tax software to file your state taxes, there's a step in there to request an extension; however, that step is of the I've fallen and can't get up! variety:



In other words, the software won't let you file the extension request for the state unless you've already requested the six-month IRS one that, in our case at least, we do not need. I did eventually discover that you can request the state extension directly on their website and then manually tell the software that you did so, but that gets to the second problem: you have to estimate and pay the amount you expect to owe by the time the extension request is due, which is tomorrow, or they will charge penalties and interest. Naturally, they also haven't extended the deadline for paying the first installment of 2023 estimated state taxes, which they conveniently make the same day as the full remaining bill for the previous year is due.

Fucks, Kathy!

Fortunately, those bills are quite a bit lower than the IRS ones, since Albany does not hit me up for self-employment tax (the solo equivalent of FICA, doubled because we're our own employer). At least they don't yet; I probably shouldn't give them any ideas.  So, with my six-month extension already in hand, I plan to get them their pound of 2022 flesh, and their quarter-pound of 2023 flesh, by the midnight deadline tomorrow night. I was fortunate that some payments came in between last week and today to enable that; and I'll still check the website just in case they change their mind at the last minute and go along with the federal generosity.
 

Hopefully there will only be a few more years of these shenanigans. I'd hate to be messing around with tax filings 19 years from now:P