After a couple of phone calls, I have concluded that my Brilliant Plan to reduce my taxes probably won't work. I was considering paying the IRS in full and seeing what options there are to spread payment of my state taxes out for a little while, and the impression I get from reading the instruction booklet is their suggestion is to do what I can to pay in full on time.
While I was on the phone with the IRS, I asked about whether I can deduct the COBRA premiums I'm paying for![[info]]()
agrumer on my taxes next year. The answer was "maybe, we're not sure yet, call us back in November." I was informed that they're thinking about allowing state-recognized domestic partnerships to file jointly, which would be good. On the other hand, under the current tax law, I may very well not be able to deduct Avi's COBRA payments. This would be unfortunate, as what I'm paying for him and me both is enough that it would definitely count as a sizable itemized deduction, while the premiums for myself alone would probably not exceed the standard deduction. Since I know I'm being underwithheld on my wage income, and I cannot easily weather the hit to my take-home pay correcting my withholding would entail, I hope a big itemized deduction for health expenditures would obviate the adjustment. This appears to be uncertain.
It occurred to me the other day that one of the reasons I enjoy translation so much is similar to why I took to accounting and, earlier, to chemistry as career paths: it's the creation of order out of disorder, the discovery of answers and patterns from the surroundings in which they are hidden. This also ties in to my penchant for puzzles. The novel, which I still haven't made any new headway on today, lacks that trajectory of discovery and of order. I'm making it all up, and it seems somewhat arbitrary right now. Leonard Bernstein famously talked of Beethoven's unerring instinct for what the next note must be, and that's the sort of story-building instinct - the knowledge of what the next development must be - that I hope I have somewhere in my head.
Anyone who's visited my apartment will be baffled by my assertion that I really like order and dislike chaos, but the part that irks me about tidying up the house - same goes for dishwashing and laundry, and getting my hair cut for that matter - is that I have to keep doing it. It won't stay neat. I realize it's the Second Law of Thermodynamics I object to - this is not why I did so poorly in that class at MIT, however - but that doesn't keep me from being annoyed with it.
While I was on the phone with the IRS, I asked about whether I can deduct the COBRA premiums I'm paying for
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=87.3)
agrumer on my taxes next year. The answer was "maybe, we're not sure yet, call us back in November." I was informed that they're thinking about allowing state-recognized domestic partnerships to file jointly, which would be good. On the other hand, under the current tax law, I may very well not be able to deduct Avi's COBRA payments. This would be unfortunate, as what I'm paying for him and me both is enough that it would definitely count as a sizable itemized deduction, while the premiums for myself alone would probably not exceed the standard deduction. Since I know I'm being underwithheld on my wage income, and I cannot easily weather the hit to my take-home pay correcting my withholding would entail, I hope a big itemized deduction for health expenditures would obviate the adjustment. This appears to be uncertain.It occurred to me the other day that one of the reasons I enjoy translation so much is similar to why I took to accounting and, earlier, to chemistry as career paths: it's the creation of order out of disorder, the discovery of answers and patterns from the surroundings in which they are hidden. This also ties in to my penchant for puzzles. The novel, which I still haven't made any new headway on today, lacks that trajectory of discovery and of order. I'm making it all up, and it seems somewhat arbitrary right now. Leonard Bernstein famously talked of Beethoven's unerring instinct for what the next note must be, and that's the sort of story-building instinct - the knowledge of what the next development must be - that I hope I have somewhere in my head.
Anyone who's visited my apartment will be baffled by my assertion that I really like order and dislike chaos, but the part that irks me about tidying up the house - same goes for dishwashing and laundry, and getting my hair cut for that matter - is that I have to keep doing it. It won't stay neat. I realize it's the Second Law of Thermodynamics I object to - this is not why I did so poorly in that class at MIT, however - but that doesn't keep me from being annoyed with it.