This time each year I wonder whether the word ‘tax’ may have been once been spelt with a double x; for it really is a four letter word in our house.
At the conclusion of each tax year I vow to be more tax organized and I adopt a new method of storing tax paperwork. Each year I hope that the new system will be the one; the one that will be there for me in the good times and the bad, in sickness and in health and have all tax requirements painlessly at hand.
Way, way back in the pre marriage, pre house and pre children days, I used the expanding file method. I lovingly labelled each little tab and put each document to bed in their relevant slot. Apart from some minor filing errors, this system was good and it served me well.
Then came love, marriage and another expanding file. I adopted minor changes to integrate the additional expanding file (his and hers files, current and past year files) but things became a bit confusing and I was forced to implement my first tax system overhaul. The expanding files were laid to rest and I upgraded to a three drawer desk. Unfortunately I failed to consider the power of the desk top. It very quickly attracted piles of documents that continued to multiply as the year moved on. Apart from causing immense stress at tax time, the piles obviously became unsightly to visitors because a filing cabinet arrived from Santa that year.
I fell in love with Filing Cabinet. It was like a grown up version of the expanding file. I invested heavily in vertical files and lovingly labelled each tab (in pencil just in case of unforeseen emergencies). Filing Cabinet and I had a wonderful relationship for years.
Then came motherhood. Filing Cabinet and Oldest Son did not get along and for its own safety, Filing Cabinet was locked behind closed doors with restricted visiting rights. Piles now formed on top of Filing Cabinet as well as the desk top and when Youngest Son was born we entered our darkest tax years. Filing Cabinet was forced out of our remaining spare room to make way for a nursery. Filing Cabinet was now on public display in our living room and the piles just had to go. Enter arch lever binders.
I have tried to block this period out of my mind. The arch lever binders and I just did not get along. This system was very labour intensive, requiring time to hole punch and time to clean up the little punched holes that two small boys had delight in emptying from the hole punch. This system didn’t survive the year.
Then came return to work time and employment at the infamous WP. This organization can only be described as wacky but it offered me tax system hope. They utilized A4 archiving boxes for all of their paperwork and as wacky as the place was, this system worked. I suppose it really is a sophisticated version of the old shoe box method that accountants joke about. So a little procession of A4 archive boxes marched into my house and have been loyal tax servants since, quietly awaiting their time to be called upon.
So quietly in fact, that without the paper piles haunting me every day there has been no need to mention the four letter word in our house. Yet again I am preparing the Tax (double x) with only days until the due date. Goodness only knows what will happen if this due date ever falls on a Friday (refer D-Day Friday).
