Stupid Tax

This post appears in the 78th Carnival of Money Stories at Funny about Money.

Turns out my stupid tax is going to be a lot more than I thought. My 2007 taxes are going to be about 30% higher than my 2006 taxes. I got a call from my accountant yesterday with the bad news and that’s pretty much all I can think about right now. Even Dave Ramsey thinks it’s smarter to get a credit card loan than to owe the IRS so that’s what I did. Now I will be paying $337 a month for the next three years. Talk about stupid. If you’ve never dealt with being stupid and not paying your taxes, let me tell you, this isn’t even the final bill. When I get my return, I’ll send it in with the taxes owed. In two or three months I’ll get a bill from the IRS for interest and penalties. That will probably be around $3,000 more. STUPID!!

When I take a break from banging my head against the wall I am actually glad that I am facing up to this issue and dealing with it. It’s been hanging over my head for awhile now. I will get it behind me and move forward. I intend to take less than three years to pay this new debt off and will continue working on my other debts and growing my savings. As I wrote the other day, I’m going to cut back my aggressive saving and investing plan for the time being. I’m going to look around for some things to sell on eBay to try and speed up the repayment of my other credit card debt so that money can be allocated to this new debt. I may take in a boarder, but I’m not sure about that one yet. My son graduates from college in May, which should also help. I’m going to go over my budget with a fine tooth comb. More sacrifices are coming my way but that’s okay. Just think how good I’ll be at frugal living by the time this debt is cleared up!

I’m going to be looking into switching from a sole proprietorship to a subchapter S and see if that will help me in the future. My accountant thinks so. I’m also going to spend some time working on my “attitude of gratitude” for all my blessings.

How have you stayed focused in the face of adversity? Did you keep your goals in mind or did you give up?