When the email arrived last weekend confirming that my tax return had been accepted by the government, I smiled tentatively. Yes, my electronic return had passed through the algorithm (three tries, in total), and now, I just need to wait a few weeks or so in hopes that no letter arrives from the IRS indicating that I made mistakes on my return or that I will soon be audited.
I touched on this topic a few weeks ago, as I always feel a little stress during tax time. All things considered, my return is pretty straight forward, but still, I cannot help feeling like I missed something, or forgot to submit a form, or whatever. The funny thing is, you never actually get a notification that everything went fine; you only get notified if you mess it up. The confirmation I received was merely to notify me that I had not messed up the electronic portion of the filing. Thus, I filled in all the fields correctly, but that does not necessarily the field was completed with the correct information.
Now, I will stay alert for the next month, in case my father contacts me with news that he has a letter for me from our government friends. As we move into summer, I will gradually forget about the whole experience, until this time next year.
The return filing is all about staying consistent, in my opinion. Since I have lived in Europe, nothing has really changed in my process: I claim my wages on the form, then submit another form which kind of backs those wages out, resulting in a taxable income of basically zero. It sounds so straight forward until they make changes to any of the forms, requiring you to include additional information. A couple of years ago I got tripped up by the change from the EZ to the non-EZ form that one files when living outside of the US. I navigated through that challenge, and will wait for whatever comes next time, which will likely have to do with my foreign financial assets or how I report being unemployed while living abroad. I will wait and see what happens.
My sister is having a more complicated time with her return. On the surface, her return seems about as straight forward as mine, but then the brain starts asking questions. Admittedly , most of those questions are valid, but I have noticed that she gets caught up in the same Baustelle as I tend to do: we keep finding ways to identify that our circumstances are not shown anywhere on the instruction forms under the "exception" section. Both she and I share the habit of overthinking things, and then the imagination kicks in to the highest gear. Normally, this is when you reach out to someone for experience sharing, but therein lies the challenge. It is not as if there are that many people living where we live that are filing US tax returns. I do happen to know a handful of Americans that I felt comfortable discussing this topic with, but was dismayed to find out that most of them had not even filed a US return in many years. In my sister's case, she has even fewer resources to speak with.
So she turns to me.
And we get through it, as always.
When I was in college, a friend of mine (one with similar aspirations to move abroad, or at the very least, work in an international environment) and I regularly gave ourselves the title, "International accountants at law," which is one of those silly things you do in your senior year of school during late nights while eating Little Caesars pizza and finishing a project for one of your classes.
Ironically, both of us do now live abroad, and while I have truly lost contact with Nate, I suspect that he is no stronger in the subject matter of law or accountancy than I am. No need to change our title to International Doofus, since we are clever cats, but it goes without saying that I am not a specialist in either of those two professions.
Economics, however, is another story. I must say that the world according to me is fairly simple, particularly from a financial perspective. I have been debt free for over 20 years, and that is such a good feeling that it helps me justify the ridiculous habit I had when I was spending 20 USD per DAY on coffees back when I was still in Dallas. Despite having a cute little espresso machine at home, I was still spending said amount on coffees out and about, then buying bean to go home and play barista at little Goliad.
As I take another sip of my beverage just now, I admire my beautiful espresso machine standing in the corner. It was a great investment, considering that I now enjoy the majority of my coffees at home. Despite the price tag of the machine, it paid for itself rather quickly. Maybe not in the same time frame I could have done back in 2003 when I was drinking (paying for) 6 double espressos per day at a minimum (note - the title "International Account at Law who is particularly focused on really good health" never really fit), but still, pretty close.
Beverage consumption is always relative, but I found myself irritated this week when I was logging in to a couple of my sports channels to watch some Arsenal matches.
Back in 2003, when I was regularly receiving customer of the month awards from my local coffee place, I found myself really wanting to be able to watch English football matches. Back then, there was really only one network that was broadcasting European soccer. If you had access to the channel, you had a reasonable chance of seeing a lot of matches. At the time, the US market tended to show all the games of the big teams; those teams that were usually at the top of the table. My team happened to be at the top of the table a lot, so I was keen to be able to see the matches.
True, the pubs would show some matches, and, as I was already spending a great deal of time at the pub anyway, I would usually go and watch in the company of friends and a handful of beers. But, sometimes the noon kickoffs made it more difficult to view the match from the pub, as not every pub felt like opening up at 6am just for 4 guys to come in and stare at a television.
The solution came when Chris suggested that I piggy back on his cable service. I jumped at the opportunity, but got a little annoyed when I had to pay "extra" for around 150 obscure channels, simply because that was the ONLY way to get access to the ONE channel I needed to watch the match.
All in all, I might have paid about 30 or 40 bucks a month, just to have that channel. I was not interested in any of the other broadcasting, and to stay consistent, I still am not a huge fan of simply watching television. Despite some of my posts that suggest that I do watch a fair amount of TV, I am referring mainly to sports networks, here. When I had access to Fox Soccer Network, I did watch a game or two during the weekend, but then never tuned in again during the week. At the rates I was paying, I calculated about a dollar a day to have the opportunity to watch a match if I felt so inclined.
If Arsenal only played once a month at 6am Dallas time, then one could consider it to be a very expensive pay for view. I did not. I always reminded myself that it cost me only a dollar a day to be able to see Arsenal at home in the privacy of my flat.
A couple of years ago, after I purchased my smart TV, I avoided most subscription channels. My pub showed all the matches, and 9 times out of 10, I could see almost every Arsenal match. There was a small conflict when Eintracht played at the same time, simply because the pub rules go to the local crowd: better for a pub full of Frankfurt fans drinking heavily than an mostly empty pub with 3 or 4 guys watching Arsenal. I understood that, and it made sense to me.
DAZN came to my rescue in 2018, when it started offering English football coverage. The subscription fees were around 10 euro per month, without any long contract or sign up fees. Thus, I was able to spend less than 30 euro cents per day to have the OPPORTUNITY to watch Arsenal on those days when their match took place when Eintracht were playing.
In my world, I did not think about the 30 cents, but rather the 2 beers that equated to the subscription price. It was certainly worth 2 beers to be able to watch an Arsenal match without the distraction of another match (and shouty fans) happening simultaneously. Still, I found myself spending more time in the pub during those matches anyway, as I do enjoy the company of watching along with other fans.
As competition increased, suddenly every company was jockeying for access rights to league football. Although I am fan of German football, it is the English football I want to see. In order to do this, I now have to maintain multiple subscriptions to ensure complete coverage of league matches, cup matches, etc. Fast forward to this past week, as I watched one Arsenal match on my Sky subscription site, followed a few days later by another match on the DAZN site. I am now paying about 30 euros per month still with the intent to HAVE the opportunity to watch the Arsenal should I have the desire. Since the pubs have all been closed for the past 6 months, this outlay seems more than justifiable. For a euro a day (or 6 beers), I can see all of the Arsenal matches.
What is my problem with this?
My team is playing like crap, that is the problem. Suddenly, spending 30 euro a month to watch my team play like shit no longer seems like a very good use of my discretionary income. I have no real interest in watching other highlights or matches (though I could), so I tune in only when my team is playing. Thus, I have spent over a 100 euro this year watching Arsenal lose a lot of games. We as fans can become irrational very quickly, so the fact that in the same time period I have probably saved 10 times that amount has no significance here.
My boss, referring to his own team earlier this week, said it best. Football really isn't important, but at the same time, it is EXTREMELY important. It does matter.
I totally understand his comment, and can only hope that my team improve their performance quickly.
Meanwhile, I now have a bit of a feeling that I will find myself getting my tax return audited by some guy from the states, who just happens to be a Tottenham fan.
Neat.
Thank goodness I actually made money on the lattes I consumed this morning while I wrote this.
See you out there
bryan
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