A note from your friendly neighborhood tax man....

If you sold stock during the year.... along with telling me that you sold it... I'd really like to know how much you sold it for.... and maybe when you bought it and how much it cost you.

If you're an American citizen on a foreign assignment and plan on taking the foreign earned income exclusion (and if you can exclude income... well you should) and I send you a travel/work calendar with a little note on top asking you to fill out every single month... and you send me it back with September not filled out... I'm going to have to e-mail you again. And I promise it will be more trouble than if you had just filled it out to begin with.

If you rented your house while on your foreign assignment, I'd like to know how much people paid you to live there... and maybe how much you paid for the house originally and all that stuff. It could be nice.

If you live in Utah, your vehicle property taxes aren't deductible. Please don't express your frustration over this with me, talk to the antique dealers who decided that vehicle property taxes should be based on age and not on value in this state. Other states aren't doing it... guess we're just a peculiar people.

If you received any form in the mail during the year with a number on it... particularly one like w-2 or 1099.... maybe you could pass that along. The 1099 ones are the best... they're really useful... while a hodge podge of your monthly statements isn't so useful especially if you're not going to send all 12 of them anyways.

If you're going to send me a big folder of random receipts from McDonalds, Walmart, or Home Depot, maybe you could give me some sort of indication about why you think your big mac or grey poupon honey mustard receipt relates to your taxes.

If you're going to decide the following day that your life will be better if your child isn't counted as your dependent, maybe don't spend all of today trying to convince me that he is your dependent. Did you know that legally if someone could take you as their dependent, whether or not they do, you can't claim the exemption for yourself?... true story. I did research about it.

Last suggestion, watch "Stranger than Fiction"... it will warm your heart. "Why don't you come over hear and whisper some more of that tax talk in my ear that I like so much..."
It is my new favorite movie... a tax man... a baker... and Emma Thompson... doesn't get much better.