Trust me, a Tax Day birthday is no holiday
by Anthonette Klinkerman
The Beatles sang about him: “’Cause I’m the tax man…” Most people, however, are not in a singing mood come April 15. So it goes without saying that having a birthday on April 15 is far worse than having one on Christmas. Your holiday birthdays may be up to your ears in holiday-themed brick-a-brack, but at least everyone is in a semi-decent mood that day. Tax Day? Not so much.
People invariably wait until the last possible moment to file, which every year leads to lines outside the post offices for procrastinators attempting to beat the midnight deadline. W-2s, 1040s, 1040 Ezs, S-Corps, LLCs… it’s enough to make your head spin, and with most people, that’s precisely the case. I pay someone else to spin his head for me.
In my ponderings of the day, I discovered that America might have chosen this date for a reason. Abraham Lincoln died early that day, shot the night before. It’s also the day the Titanic went down. I’m sensing a theme here.
To top it all off, my brother was born that day, nine years earlier. So besides having a day of total chaos as my birth date, I have to share it.
So on my birthday, I am usually busy procrastinating. Why should I have to meet the deadline? Shouldn’t I get some sort of extension for being saddled with a birthdate every American patriotically hates? I know there are some that say people aren’t technically required to pay Federal taxes. I’m not sure how that works as technically my healthy sense of fear keeps me from finding out. And technically redheads don’t look good in orange, and I technically would go up in flames if I had to work out in the sun for too long.
My father actually forgot my birthday one year as he was completely absorbed in his anxiety about getting his paperwork filed. I forgave him for two reasons: first, he is my father and couldn’t get song lyrics right if his life depended on it, and two, he is a lawyer so I can only imagine what kind of stress tax laws create in those people.
April 15th looms large, and people all over this great land are monitoring their blood pressure and restocking their antacids. Or their sleep aids.
Happy Tax Day Birthday to me. I hope my refund can technically cover a cupcake.
