Monday, June 13, 2005


WILDFLOWERS AND SCHEDULE SE

Each year as Spring rolls into Summer on its golden wheel and I find myself gazing out the window into sunlight falling with June largesse from a broad blue sky upon meadows of wildflowers - within the full embrace of which I would infinitely rather be walking, or better yet, lying - I am sitting at a table facing the annual deadline, filling out my US tax phonebook “Forms and Instructions for Overseas Filers” (Drop-in-the-ocean excerpt: “If you are the spouse who carried on the business, you must include on line 3, Schedule SE, the net profit or (loss) reported on the other spouse’s Schedule C, C-EZ, or F (except income not included in net earnings from self-employment as explained on page SE-3, “Community Income Taxed to Spouse” and the amount of any net profit or (loss) allocated to your spouse as community income.” The further I blunder through the pages that sorely need an editor and forms that sorely need an accountant (I suspect I have a defective accounting gene) the more I realize I’ve always been on the side of the wildflowers.

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