Thursday, April 10, 2014

I have a very organized filing system and it took only about ten minutes to pull all the paperwork together so our accountant can file our tax returns. So why, after another three hours am I still not finished?

I have to send all our receipts by mail to the accountant’s office in Vancouver, and I don’t trust the post office. I don’t know how many times parcels I have sent have gone missing. They are always good about refunding my postage, and they’ve never totally lost something, but I don’t trust them on time-sensitive packages. I don’t understand why an Express post package that can’t be delivered (because I messed up the postal code) isn’t returned immediately to me so I can correct the mistake and send it back. Had they done so the last time my leprechaun would still have made it to Calgary in time for St. Patrick’s Day. Eventually, three weeks later, the package was delivered. With the increased postal rates I don’t expect the service will be any better.

Our accountant is an amazing woman and calculates all the options so we pay as little tax as possible. I don’t trust her staff with the paperwork though. Every quarter I send the paperwork for Pat’s GST reports, but by the end of the year they seem to be missing bits and pieces of it. They change front office staff frequently and you never know who you are going to get when you call the office. I don’t like to send anything other than electronic copies to them.

But income tax is different and originals must be sent, and that is why I’m still working at it. I spent almost all morning scanning our paper work so if somebody loses something, I will have a back up. Tomorrow I’ll get it all tucked into an envelope and take it to the post office. I’ll send it Express, get a signature on delivery and keep my fingers crossed!