US Returns

Monday 8PM-10PM

• After four months of building dread, finally drag myself in front of the computer and fire up TurboTax
• Run through 50 screens of income, deductions, foreign residency tests, “making work pay” credits, and more fun stuff
• Run it again because I’m paranoid
• Cookie break
• Google “US tax returns 2010 expatriate Spain” for a while before figuring I’ve done the best I could
• Get set to e-file, then discover that I can’t (no clear reason given)
• Save a PDF of my return and log out
• Watch Stewart and Colbert to detox

Tuesday 7PM-8PM

• Print out PDF, write check, address envelope
• Have sudden paranoid feeling, begin Googling “US tax returns 2010 expatriate Spain”
• Stare at tax treaties until cross-eyed
• Throw hands in the air
• Stuff return into envelope, seal, to be mailed certified sometime later this week
• Cookie reward

Total Time: 3 hours (plus 4 months of procrastinating/dreading, plus 20 minutes of standing in line at the post office)
Total Cost: TurboTax fees

Spanish Returns

Tuesday 8PM-8:15PM

• Go to government website
• Receive access key by text message on my phone
• Download a draft of my return in PDF format and review the figures that have been entered there by the agency
• Approve the proposed tax amount
• Provide bank account number for payment
• Log out

Total Time: 15 minutes
Total Cost: zero

This is where I live now. How’s a girl supposed to keep all of this straight? A fantastic analysis of this mess is available on bigthink. Includes bonus trivia about the Vatican! Who doesn’t like Vatican trivia?

…head on over to ifitwasmyhome.com and map a scale image of the oil plume onto your current city or town. Here you can see the result for my location:

The site admins update the image of the oil plume regularly using satellite data from NOAA. They also have a live video feed of the spill and a running total of gallons leaked, just in case the visualization of an oil plume covering your home and the surrounding vicinity wasn’t enough to ruin your day.

via flowingdata