You’ve done it – again.
Despite everything you told yourself last year about getting your taxes prepared early, you’ve waited until the last minute. Time is counting down fast, and truth is, you have less than two weeks left to make it happen.
If you don’t want to be one of the estimated 23 percent of Americans who miss the Internal Revenue Service tax deadline, get on it today so you can have your taxes finished and breathing a sigh of relief by April 17. Yes, Uncle Sam is giving you two extra days this year.
We realize just thinking about the IRS and taxes is stressful, so here are five ways to relieve your stress during the last days of tax season:
1. Get professional help.
Do-it-yourself computer tax preparation programs can work well for many people. They seamlessly guide you through deductions, but unless your tax situation is simple, you might want to reduce your stress by using a tax preparer or an accountant.
While it won’t completely eliminate the burden, it probably will reduce your stress by minimizing your workload and knowing someone has a clue about what’s going on.
“There are a lot of tax benefits you don’t know about, and you might not take advantage of if you do your taxes yourself,” says Faisal Imam, manager of Liberty Tax Service in Detroit. “It saves you in the long-run to come to us (tax preparers.) We can help answer questions, and people feel better when they finally get it done.”
2. Take baby steps.
If your tax situation is complex, break the job up into smaller parts, take on a little every night and spend some time each day this weekend until you get it done. Trying to do it all over the weekend might be too much, says Elizabeth Scott, a life coach who wrote the “Guide to Stress Management” for About.com. Start by scheduling specific amounts of time for your tax preparation work, such as a half-hour each evening and two hours Saturday, she suggests.
3. Reward yourself.
Since you’ve already spent months procrastinating, if you manage to organize your documents, shuffle through mounds of paper to find your W-2 forms and find that receipt from the things you donated to Goodwill last year, treat yourself. Go ahead, give yourself a break, even if it’s only a small one, and then get back to work.
Sharon Lake, executive director of Lavish Mobile Day Spa in West Bloomfield Township, Mich., a service that makes house calls for massages, manicures and pedicures, says tax season is the perfect time to order up some fun. “Take some time out for yourself,” she says.
“Send the kids away. Even if it’s for an hour, allow someone to come in a totally pamper you with a full-body massage. Even if it’s an hour, refresh yourself with a massage, a manicure and pedicure, a body scrub or facial.”
4. Consider filing for an extension.
If you’ve recently had a death in the family or your mother had hip replacement surgery and your stress level is too high to think about filing taxes, perhaps filing for a four-month extension is the best thing right now, says family psychologist Sabra Hitchcock.
“If you think you owe, pay some of it and get extended for the rest of it,” she says. “Stress is like this: you pay now or you pay later. When things seem too overwhelming, sometimes it’s better to pay later.” But don’t wait until Aug. 14 to get going, she says.
Work slowly on the task beginning now, and you’ll be in good shape by summer.
5. Minimize next year’s stress.
If you start now figuring out a system for keeping track of your tax records throughout the year, you can make next year’s tax preparation process much easier, Scott says.
She says taking this step toward organization will ease the burden all year long if you know how much easier this is going to be in 2008.
