It's that time of year again! Tax time... As a self-employed person, taxes are particularly fun. (Please note the use of sarcasm.) This year, I have been particularly blessed with some novel snafus and headaches. While I have largely handled my own insurance billing for my practice, due to some bizarre legalities, it has made sense for me to contract out my Medicaid billing. Unfortunately, the agency I had affiliated with since the dawn of my private practice stopped paying its 500+ affiliates this past summer. Then all of the employees walked out at the beginning of the Fall. Then the agency closed its doors. Then they filed for bankruptcy.
So, on the brink of going out on maternity leave, I was stiffed thousands of dollars that I had put in extra hours to make in order to cushion my family for my time out of work... Which stinks. As a result, myself along with many others hired lawyers and the drama has continued. However, to add insult to injury, despite being assured that the proper tax forms were going to be sent to us, the end of January came and went without any sign of them. The lawyer for the now-defunct agency continued to assure people that the form would be sent, and I continued to wait... and wait... and wait... However, today marked the day when it was time for me to get out of denial and face the fact that the form was never going to come.
Now, there are more than 500 people who are in the same sinking boat, and I have been following their tax-related woes on a listserve. What I have discovered is that people have been given conflicting information from the IRS. (Shocking, I know!) In one scenario, the IRS had to send out an alternate form for us to fill out... In the other scenario, an entirely different form could be printed from their website. So, in the interest of CYA, I concluded that I would have to call the IRS directly to find out which option was for me. As I have never called the IRS before today, this would clearly count as a novel experience! After getting lost in an endless loop of menus, and having the automated system hang up on me due to ignorance of the non-existent agency's current mailing address, I finally got a real, live person. And that real, live person told me that I did not have to do ANYTHING at all... (Scenario number three?) Which, perhaps is accurate??? Yikes.
So, after an energy-draining day of working on my family's taxes, I was ready to wind down and spend some quality time helping my little girl settle in for a good night's sleep. I decided that I should start this process by tickling her. Clearly, this is an effective part of any child's bedtime routine, right? So that was what I was doing when it happened... My baby girl giggled for the first time! A novelty Yin to balance out all of the Yang! And suddenly, my day was life-affirming once again!
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