OK. The government gave me an extra 90 days to do my taxes and it is now day 88. Everyone had an extra 90 days, but that’s not my problem. Luckily my desk top is relatively clean, just a few straggling bills, and a ten gallon aquarium project that went no-where and must be removed. I set it up so nicely, too, with rocks and washed sand, and it was in the right spot for me to watch the crayfish and sunnies and small bass, but I soon discovered the filter did not work, and then that the air pump was SO LOUD that no-one could stand it and the complaints came in from all rooms and even the dog was on edge from the noise. Worse than the refrigerator.

Our house of stone and its distance from the state highway lends itself to a profound quietude and any disturbance -- a chair moving, a Pandora song with the volume set on notch three of one hundred – elicits passive and not so passive rebukes from co-inhabitors. I tread lightly, and quietly!

I have the space to work on these taxes and hopefully everything is in one folder in the cabinet behind me. I suppose most people have the same system – as statements and papers marked “Tax Documents” come in, they are shoved into a folder marked with the year, not of what year you are in, but the year in which the documents are documenting. The file cabinet is so full nothing really fits, papers slide up and out of the cabinet as if squeezing cream from an Oreo. I have to be careful papers don’t get lost or misfiled. Most of it is straightforward. When you have a farm, you have a schedule F, and when you have a Stone Restoration business you have a Schedule C, and when you dabble in a few stocks on the stock market you have hell to pay.

Everyone will agree the tax code needs to be reformed but we can’t agree on what will replace it. I’m not one for a flat tax, be it on sales or income. A flat tax is regressive. That means it hurts poor people more than the wealthy. Let’s say we have two people: one has a million dollars and the other has a thousand dollars. They both need a smart phone. Let’s say the flat tax is 15% on all sales. (Sounds so reasonable, so fair.) The sales tax on an $800 phone will be $120 no matter who buys it. Yet the tax rate on the net worth of Individual Two will be 12% of his net worth, while on Individual One the tax on his net worth will be 0.00012%. Both individuals have the same basic needs to live in today’s society. A flat tax penalizes the people least equipped to fund government.

I’m turning around in my chair now. I’m reaching into the filing cabinet. My appointment is at 6:30. I’ve got all day. The stickler is those trades – those trades with no known cost-basis. Nightmare. Why did I wait so long! I don’t know. The data has to be somewhere.