Clearly, it's that time of the year.

I dreamed my mom got arrested for high treason. On further investigation, "high treason" in this case meant "didn't pay enough taxes." Guess the IRS took over when I wasn't looking.

In reality, I wound up paying a whole lot less than expected, even with the CPA's fee. Actually, he probably more than made up for it (whether or not you put a dollar amount on avoiding the hassle of filing umpteen forms for five separate jobs last year). He's very good at digging up stuff I didn't think was deductible (or just wasn't thinking about). "Did you take any job-related classes?" Five courses at the community college, all job skills, yes. "Good, that's deductible. Last year you were at a different address; you moved to this job?" Yeah. "Cost of moving is deductible." And so on.

Since most of my jobs last year were contractor, I'd been putting aside money from my paychecks myself instead of someone else doing the withholding. So I didn't get a refund, per se, but that tax fund got "unlocked" after I sent my IRS check in with over a thousand bucks still in it. Think I'll split it between the car fund and a nice fat payment toward my student loans... and maybe a hundred left over to blow on something gratuitous. :D