loracs | Apr. 16th, 2009

I finally got all our taxes in the mail. With

dbubley still in the rehab center, I had to get hers done too. Such weirdness around the domestic partner stuff. I used H&R Block. Their software works in this fashion: Fill in Federal info first, then it imports it into the State version and WA LA your taxes are done for another year. But wait, The Fed's don't accept DP, but the State of CA requires DPs to file as "Married". So the dance begins, fill in the Fed as if you're married, let it import to the State, e-file or print out the State portion. Go back to Fed, remove all references to "married" and replace with single, e-file or print out the Federal portion. Doesn't sound too bad except you have to pull out each and every connection to the DP manually - separate all income and deductions. Then go back and forth to make sure you have everything, In addition, there doesn't seem to be anyway to save several versions so you can compare the best way to take each deduction. It took forever for the very sweet woman to complete it all. Then I made it worst by forgetting to bring some forms back that

dbubley signed. So even though I had my initial appointment on March 31, I only picked up the final paperwork on April 14th. I stood in line about 20 minutes to mail the big bulky State envelope.

I asked the woman why their software didn't have a way to make this easier and she said because H&R Block is national and they didn't want to confuse their agents in states were domestic partners were not recognized, which is still the vast majority of the states. You know another way they could make this all easier - the Federal government could just recognize DPs and then it would all be the same. Or let the government drop this entire "separate, but equal" crap and make all unions Domestic Partnerships or Marriages, I personally don't care which word they use. I know I'm preaching to the converted, for the most part, here on my friends list.

Glad it's all over for another year.