What Else Have I Failed to Teach My Children?
It all comes out in the wash once they’re grown.
Death and taxes.
Wasn’t it Benjamin Franklin who first said those are the only two things that are certain in life?
Then why—in the last few weeks—have both of my twentysomething daughters called to tell me they received overdue tax notices? Not because they never filed (thank goodness), but because something had been miscalculated.
But that’s not the issue. The issue is that neither one of them had proof of what they’d submitted—no copies of their completed forms or W-2s.
What? I know electronic filing has replaced paper submission in many instances, but I never would have thought to send something out into cyberspace without keeping some type of backup just in case.
“In case of what?” my older daughter asked when I said the same thing to her.
“In case a mistake has been made and the amount you paid comes into question, exactly as it has now.”
Sounds obvious to me, but apparently not.
I laugh when I think of the lengths I went to when I was younger to preserve the “backup” I’m referring to — and what a pain in the ass it was, too!
