Sunday, April 15, 2007

62. The Taxman Cometh and Other Idle Ponderings

It is a lovely day in paradise. Unfortunately, I am inside downloading tax forms. The forms are available online (that's how I'm downloading them, duh) at DepartmentOfFinance .

The CNMI has a wonky tax form, especially if you're doing the full CM (as I do). There are a lot of places where you have to move forward, do some computation, and then come back and insert it into the form. At times, it appears nonsensical. But I'm almost adept at this.

I trace my ability to follow these arcane types of instructions, back and forth, to the missal I got in fifth grade. I felt so grown up, with a big thick missal for church, with pretty colored ribbons. And then I found out why there were ribbons--to mark your place so you could flip back and forth as you went through the Mass. One ribbon for the basic service, one for the first reading, one for the second reading, one for the gospel, and extras for inserted prayers--all of which vary from Sunday to Sunday. I became good at this kind of spatial "logic."

And then I took tax in law school. I was busy with a social life and didn't like to attend class very much. Fortunately, a very nice classmate loaned me his notebook. He had illustrated many of the legal principals with funny drawings that I found very helpful. And of course, I knew how to mark my tax code (with ribbons!) so that I could flip around and find just what I needed.

And now, I am facing the CNMI tax form, which I've done enough times to find it familiar and almost easy. But still I procrastinate.

Thank goodness for the most requested tax form-#4868--not found on the CNMI Department of Finance's site, but found here.

2 comments:

Samatakah said...

College financial aid officers are sometimes required by law to "verify" what folks put on the federal fin aid application by checking them against their tax returns. It's an audit - about 30% of filers get "selected" for verification.

The Dept. of Education does not require verification of students from Saipan, American Samoa, and the American Virgin Islands. For three years I had two students (twins) from Samoa who always got selected and whom I never had to verify. It was a small relief.

Saipan Writer said...

Interesting bit of information. Didn't know this. Thanks for sharing.