Last year, TURBOTAX refused to allow me to e-file my Federal and State returns. When I called the TURBOTAX help line, they wanted to charge me $50 to tell me how to fix that. “Go to Hell,” I told them and printed out my tax returns and mailed them in, vowing I’d never use TURBOTAX again!
Well, Time heals some wounds and last week I decided to give TURBOTAX one more chance. It took me about an hour to install the program, input our tax data, and fill in the New York State tax data. Finally, the Moment of Truth: would TURBOTAX allow me to e-file or would I never use TURBOTAX again? Fortunately, both the Federal and State returns were e-filed successfully. We owed some money to the Feds and a bit more to NY State.
Do you have your taxes done? Do you do it yourself or do you farm the tax preparation out?
As usual, I know very little about the politics of the Oscars. Here are my best guesses for the winners:
BEST PICTURE: “Oppenheimer”
ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE: Lily Gladstone (“Killers of the Flower Moon”)
ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE: Cillian Murphy (“Oppenheimer”)
ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE: Da’Vine Joy Randolph (“The Holdovers”)
ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE: Robert Downey Jr. (“Oppenheimer”)
BEST DIRECTOR: Christopher Nolan
Who do you think will win?
We had our taxes done at the Ruston Senior Center for free! It meant sitting it a hot rec room in hard chairs for two hours while one person calculated the tax and another checked his work! I ended up owing $1104! They told me that the IRS can penalize you if you owe over $1000, but since I had a refund last year they probably wouldn’t!
As for the Oscars, ho-hum, yawn, snore! I don’t go to movies anymore and I don’t know who most of these people are!
Bob, I owed about as much in taxes as you did. I know the IRS has sites where they will do your taxes for free, but I’m not in the mood to sit in a hot rec room in a hard chair for two hours.
Yes, we still farm ours out, and will get that done when we get home in three weeks (and pick up our accumulated mail, including all the forms. ( get some online.)
As for the Oscars… my, how the mighty have fallen. As mentioned, we have no real interest in the show (or most of the movies) these days, and will not be watching it tonight. We’ll be streaming our usual lineup and will undoubtedly get bulletins on the phone. Besides, everyone pretty much picked the same people to win. I will be pleased if Da’Vine Joy Randolph wins Best Supporting Actress, as expected, as THE HOLDOVERS was the only movie we saw and she was terrific.
I do still intend to watch OPPENHEIMER.
The days of me writing down all the nominees in all the categories as they are announced, and each of us voting for our favorites, is long gone, sadly. Jackie used to win the school Oscar pool by her uncanny luck in guessing the winners in the minor categories where no one – including her – had seen the movies, or shorts.
Jeff, Diane may watch some of the Oscars–mostly for the fashions–but even she has lost interest in the whole event.
I dropped off our paperwork a couple weeks ago. Now the kids are grown, we could probably do it ourselves, but I like having a professional actually sign their name on our returns.
As for the Oscars, I co-sign everything Jeff said. There was a time when I tried to see every nominated movie and major category performances. When the kids were growing up, we’d do a family Oscar pool (Lilly, for whatever reason, seemed to win that more often than anyone else). I still have a scrapbook that I kept (starting in 1972) where I would clip out the Oscar nominations page from the TV Guide every year and put a check mark by each winner as they were announced. I stopped doing that a few years ago, but I did it for a good forty years. Now I’m lucky if I’ve seen one of the movies and have no interest in watching the show. I guess I’ll be too busy yelling at kids to stay off my lawn!
I know! I used to use a 9 x 12 inch lined yellow pad to write down all the categories and nominees, and I’d underline each winner, then add up the total wins for each movie at the end. I still have those papers in a drawer somewhere, going back to THE GODFATHER, I think.
Deb, I wonder if the streaming services have sucked all the energy out of the Oscars. Fewer people to to movie theaters now. As Jeff points out, there are no real movie stars anymore. No Marilyn Monroes or Cary Grants. Diane would like me to take our taxes to a local tax service, but we only have four numbers to deal with: Diane’s pension and Social Security, and my pension and Social Security. Our Tax Return is very simple.
I do my taxes by filing out the paper form in ink, with smudges and cross-outs. Where advantageous, I made my 5s look like 6s, my 4s like 9s, 1s like 7s, and etc.vice-versa. You can make a lot of money that way!
Dan, the IRS is understaffed so the chances of your return being Audited is about zero.
We’ve gone to the same CPA for years. Fast and reliable. Not having seen any of the movies in the 2024 running, I don’t have any basis for analysis other than guesswork. Wonder if they’ll observe the 50th anniversary of the 1974 streaker?
Fred, streakers have become an endangered species…
I’ve tended to do my own with no instructional aids. More the fool, I. (And then there’s the taxes! *rim shot*) My first year at TV GUIDE, I guessed most correctly which new network series would succeed/be renewed–our grand boss was an inveterate gambler, and I edged her slate. Money on the table made that worth my while.
Never too much worry/interest in Oscars.
Todd, I suspect your insights into which new network series would succeed/be renewed would be worth Big Bucks in Hollywood!
I’m not too sure anyone would listen even if I offered. As you note elsewhere, the suits are more interested in how much money they can lose in streaming these years. Sadly, that was the last year of the pool, as Beryl Shrive stepped down a few months later, and while she took a brief retirement job (not even allowing her to keep an office, she was located to the cubicle next to mine), she wasn’t, nor were her successors, interested in making several-department-wide bet/pools.
To some extent, William Goldman’s maxim rules OK (“Nobody knows anything.”), but some things are easier to guess than others…
https://socialistjazz.blogspot.com/2024/03/januaryfebruary-underappreciated-music.html
Todd, Goldman is right: Nobody knows anything in Hollywood. But, money is the fuel that drives the entire entertainment industry.
Money drives industry…hubris drives CEOs & co.
Todd, and CEOs are obsessed with bonuses and stock options in addition to hubris.
I’ll watch the Oscars. My two favorites were Oppenheimer and Killers of the Flower Moon. I think your guesses are probably spot on.
Steve, I missed on Emma Stone, but I’m glad she won. She’s one of my favorite actresses!