The Cheesecake is Rich

So, the dogs needed flea treatment. We use Frontline Plus (we used a new pill flea treatment, which I loved for its ease but hated the cost). I bought a 3 pack (1.5 months worth for two dogs) at Petco for $62. I’d been pricing it online and I thought that seemed high, but I decided that I was wrong because why would there be such a disparity in price?

Today I go to Petco’s website and the same doggone (ha ha) stuff is $42. A difference of $20! That is just stupid! So then I get really aggravated and went to Bing.com (the tantalizing home of Bing Cashback) and searched for Frontline Plus.

Whee! Drugstore.com has it on sale. Plus 20% Bing Cash Back.

So, my choices were: 1.5 months from Petco for $62, 1.5 months from Petco.com for $42 OR…(I love this!) 3 months from Drugstore.com for $71 before 20% Bing Cashback. Minus 20% = $57. WOOOHOOO! I got more than double for my money. YAY!

And yes, I did return the original package to Petco. The cashier told me they’d price match their own website (???!!!!) but that I’d have to bring them a printout for the difference. From their own website!

Reading a recipe called “Mom’s Mac & Cheese” – MY Mom’s Mac & Cheese came in a box claiming to be the cheesiest, so whose mom wrote this?

So, even though both the door and the book have been closed on Plan B, I still have Hope. Hope is a total biiiitch and I truly hate her. Why, just today she woke me up at 5 AM whispering “Hey, you’re late [yanno, late] and you do still have all those Clearblue Easy digitals I wouldn’t let you throw away…”

(Okay, I used the grocery store brand non-digital first but I threw away the box when I cleaned out the bathroom so I wasn’t entirely sure what the result was, so I *had* to bring out the big gun).

(Oh, and the CBE digital said “Hell No!”)

(Here’s an idea: funny pregnancy tests – the results are “thumbs up” for positive or the middle finger for negative)

(It would be PERFECT. The first pregnancy test for people who can’t understand the regular tests and are illiterate and can’t read the regular digitals)

(Then again, some people take these tests hoping to not be pregnant, so maybe this would have to be marketed to illiterate infertiles, which is an awfully small group)

So, thank you for listening to my TMI tale, dear blog readers. I don’t think Gene would have understood (“Well of COURSE you’re not pregnant!”) – it’s just that Hope is awfully beguiling with the “You never know!” stuff.

What the FUCK was THAT?
(Hey, look, a post NOT about W-2s or babies!)

(OK, fine, back to W-2s)

Directly (!!!) from the Internal Revenue Service’s website:

Why report tips to your employer?

You must report tips to your employer so that:

Your employer can withhold federal income tax and

social security and Medicare taxes or railroad retirement tax

(Right there! HA! In yo’ face, Tax Professional Ol’ Biddy!)

So, let’s talk about something that is not related to W-2 (that said, it occurred to me today that “W-2″ sounds like what would happen if George W. Bush had a son who became President)

(and with that, I think my mother just fainted in horror)

Anyway. Gene and I both had Martin Luther King day off a few weeks ago. I spent part of the 3 day weekend making these. (Okay, they looked a little messier than the picture on Bakerella’s website). I have talked about them on Facebook and honestly, I can’t believe I forgot to talk about it here.

Cakeballs = a medium sized amount of work (bake cake, let it cool, crumble it into biggest bowl you can find, mix with entire tub of frosting, shape into balls onto cookie sheet, let them set, cover in chocolate, let them chill).

Cakeballs also = delicious. Ohhhhh, so good.

A 9×13 red velvet cake made about 56 cakeballs. I took a dozen or so to work (where they were very popular and I felt like a rock star, which is rare) and Gene and I enjoyed the rest. Slowly.

And, if you’re not into eating chocolate balls, one of my Facebook friends elegantly renamed them “Cake truffles.”

(I warned you)

Background: on a W-2 form, for some reason, tips and wages are separated out for Social Security (i.e., if your taxable wages were $5000 for the year, there will be a box that says that your Social Security wages were $1000 and Social Security tips were $4000).

So, I got a call today from a tax preparer (not an employee of ours, not H&R Block, but a real live tax professional) complaining that we had to refund Suzy Server $400 in Social Security tax because we had withheld too much and we also had to print an amended W-2 for Suzy.

(I get this one a lot although I always act surprised when it comes up so the caller doesn’t feel dumb).

(Avg. number of times I get this question per year = 5. Avg number of times I’m wrong and have to refund anything and print an amended W-2 = 0).

(Oh, and for the record I do not do my own taxes. Our former neighbor is a CPA so once a year I drive to his office and shove an envelope of stuff in his mailbox).

Anyway, back to my tale. Tax professional insists – inSISTS – that we were not to have deducted Social Security from the tip portion of Suzy’s earnings. She knows so because Turbo Tax says so.

What kind of tax professional doesn’t know this because she’s a tax professional and but because a computer program tells her so. (Ugh, there is probably some hypocrisy in that sentence, but I’ll let you find it). “I can file it but they’ll reject it!” she tells me super huffily.

At this point I feel terrible for our employee, who just wants to get her damn refund, but made the mistake of entrusting her tax preparation to a tax professional who apparently knows not a damn thing about taxes. Really unfortunate. I feel like I should try to call the employee and say “Get away from this lady! You will end up in biiiig trouble!” But all I tell The Professional is “We have withheld appropriately,” which is true.

(Really. I had this same scenario crop up last week – not with a Professional but with a regular person like you or me –  and I managed to explain to her the concept of adding SS wages to SS tips, so why can’t a real live Tax Professional “get” it?)

So, I have an early W-2 season funny story for you:

There is a former employee of my employer. We will call him Senor Dumbass or SD for short. He has a wife/girlfriend/fiancee, Senora Dumbass or Mrs. SD. For the record, SD no longer works for us because he failed a very important test (puff, puff).

I spoke to Mrs. SD (hmm, just realized that I am calling her Mrs. Mrs. Dumbass – oh well) a few weeks ago when she called to give me SD’s new address for his W-2. He received his W-2 and today Mrs. SD called back because something was horrrribly wrong w/ the W-2. He received two W-2s (??). I looked him up in the software and he’s only in there once so there is NO WAY he received two W-2s without something being horribly awry (or maybe there’s another choice… but wait for it!). “Youuuuuu haaaave to fiiiiix thiiiiis,” she tells me repeatedly (BTW, I think Mrs. SD would have failed that test as well…).

“But I don’t see anything wrong!” I said and told her to fax me the W-2s so I can see them. (If the $$ wasn’t for SD, who were they for?). She agrees and I end the call. (BTW, of course she is AT H&R Block getting her taxes done right that moment). But then she calls back and says she has no way of getting to a fax machine (what changed in the previous 5 minutes?). I tell her to mail copies to me. She once again reminds me that “Youuuuu have to fiiix thissss, we haaaave to fiiiiile our taaaaxes!” and ends the call.

Confused -and suffering a tiny contact high- I look up SD’s 2008 wages in the software and low and behold, they were the same as the figure on the mysterious “other” W-2. What’s so crazy is that the W-2 clearly has the year listed. It’s not written in code or Roman numerals. They all say 2-0-0-9 or 2-0-0-8. Even the tax preparer at H&R Block was confused (maybe he had a contact high too?).

Endgame: Left Mrs. SD a voicemail that basically said, “Yeehaw, Dumbass, what you got there is an old W-2. Next time, put down the crack pipe and read a little closer!”

(Well, OK, my message said that the figure matched his 2008 wages and that perhaps the 2008 W-2 got put in their 2009 file).

(Hmm, perhaps the SD family is also filing their 2008 taxes?)

…about W-2s

(Groan!)

(Yes, this is the time of year where I talk about nothing but W-2s but at least I’m not talking about babies, so shut up).

So, let’s say that you are shocked (!) that only $9 was deducted in federal tax all year long. Don’t go crying to your employer’s payroll clerk, as if she deducted another $100 and is spending it on beer and cashews or something. You claimed Married and 4 and all of your paychecks were for $300. Did you not notice each pay period that the federal tax YTD was $0?

And don’t ask the payroll clerk “What SHOULD I claim?” Ummm… I have a grand total of 6 days training in payroll and 0 days training in taxes. Don’t ask me. What’s next? Asking me what religion to choose? (ha ha hahaha) Most of the time I refer the person to a CPA, accountant or H&R Block, although I am considering no longer mentioning that last one because I spoke to one of their crack tax preparers and frankly they sounded like perhaps they used crack.

And finally, here is a thought: If you moved three years ago and then quit your job with my company, maybe you should have called me with your new address sometime in the last 3 years. Mo-ron. Your f’ing address was on each of your payroll checks, so the fact that it was wrong is not a surprise. Neither is the fact that W-2s come out every f’ing year. (Trust me on this – I am on my 10th W-2 “Season”).

Speaking of W-2 Season, I told a co-worker today that W-2s are like politics. You spend all this time working to get everything done and then all you can do is sit around and wait for the returns. (For example, I have received a half dozen back in the mail already. The rest of the week will be mayhem-a-riffic).

Just as I thought, the tally of pregnancies is now up to 4, with a total # of expected babies up to 5 (WOW!). I am so happy for all of you