Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Stock Options and the IRS








I hope you never get one in the mail. I am talking about a letter from the Internal Revenue Service. I received it Friday, two weeks ago. It stated I owed Uncle Sam over 7,000 dollars because I didn't do my 2006 tax refund right. I started shaking and had to sit down. I kept trying to read the letter to see why, but all I could see was black words on white paper. Something about owing taxes on the proceeds from the sale of $19,000 worth of stock options. As this soaked in, it started to make more sense. I did sell that amount of options. But what the IRS didn't get was that those options cost me over $16,000 to purchase in cost, fees, and taxes. Yes, taxes were taken out by my employer. But the IRS didn't know that. I remember now, calling Deutsche Bank while doing my 2006 taxes and asking about the paperwork that the IRS was missing. I was told that SWA added it all into my W2. Which they did. I knew I had paperwork on all of it, but I couldn't find it. I must have shredded it with a lot of other papers. I tried online to open my account with Deutsche Bank, but couldn't remember my user name much less my password. I had to wait all weekend to contact them. I woke up early Monday to call and get online access again. Just a few key strokes and I had the figures the IRS and my Tax Refund was lacking. But my printer was broken and I was waiting on warranty parts from Kodak. Can you send me hard copies, I asked? Four days later I had what I needed. So I sat down again and read the letter. It also wanted a Schedule D filled out. To my surprise, I think I might get around $300 back for this amended return. We'll see in a few weeks if my figures match the figures the IRS comes up with. In the mean time, Kodak sent me a new print head for my printer and all is well now. I could print a photo, but it wouldn't print documents.




The first weekend of April found me in Austin with Rebecca. We were going canoeing, but never made it. After getting up late and deciding on a short drive to look at property southwest of Austin. Rebecca got Hwy 620 and Loop 360 confused and we didn't get back to the canoe rental place on Town Lake (what the locals call the Colorado River near downtown Austin) in time to rent a canoe! So we went over to the nature trail to find they had closed 20 minutes before. We then cruised South Congress Ave. watching all the hot rods and all the people they attract. It was a state wide hot rod rally and we were in the middle of it! There were some wild rides there and Rebecca took tons of photos. She took a lot of photos out my truck side window, so most of those have my nose in the photos also. Don't worry, I didn't post the nose photos!






Then we made our way to the Congress Ave. Bridge to watch up to a million and a half Mexican Free-tailed bats leave their perches under the bridge. We watched from the north shore under the bridge, then realized most of the bats were closer to the south shore. So we hiked over the bridge and stayed watching bats until it was too dark to see them unless you used your flash on the camera. We took a few good photos and you can see them here.
With a day as action packed as that, I was ready to take a bath and relax. But Rebecca wanted to go sing Karaoke. She also wante ME to sing. I have sung Karaoke with Luke in Thailand before, but we walked home then. I was driving and told Rebecca I really need about two Margaritas before I hit the floor! But I got to hear her sing. Her friend, Camille, sang also. We had a fun time and took a lot of photos with Rebecca's camera. Maybe by the time I post again, she will have emailed them to me.
I made it home in time on Sunday to mow Mom and Dad's yard and the majority of my yard and pasture. I didn't even get the Big Red Beast out. We had a gully washer of a rain last Tuesday and between me being tired and it still muddy, I just let my Mahindra sleep in the barn. Besides, after getting out of the mud last weekend by herself (with our help) she deserved a rest! Stop back for my next post when I tell of my birthday wish! It's a big one!
hugs, Brandi

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