I got the email from our tax preparer and I looked at the
back page. “Fantastic!” I thought as the
three digit number peeked out on the bottom of the Amount Due line. I proudly closed the email and moved on.
But then I realized that the federal amount owing was always on
the top, the state forms were on the bottom.
I reopened the email, downloaded the form, read the number on the
federal amount due and felt my heart stop.
There had to be a mistake. Five
figures? I have never owed five figures in my life.
My thoughts became frantic.
It had to be a
misunderstanding of the IRA rollover – thinking it must be “real” income.
It had to be a
mistaken reading of our VRBO numbers.
It had to be………………..it
had to be………………….it had to be…………………
My God. There goes our savings!
Contact with the tax preparer’s office did not help. And no, there are no deductions for a
vacation rental business. The pension
deductions were insufficient and the rest must be paid.
My heart didn’t stop again, but it did beat wildly against
my rib cage.
I emailed the tax preparer and outlined the details of the
VRBO, the Business Identification Number, the lodging taxes paid, etc. etc. I was very formal and assuring in my professional
manner.
The response I got back was not friendly. Basically it said the following:
What you say doesn’t matter.
Nothing can be done about it.
It will be worse next year.
You are welcome to get a second opinion. (Inferred to read “good luck with that”)
The stronghold in my solar plexus cracked and melted a
little as my power base rolled into a fetal position. I was helpless against rules and laws and
experts who performed mechanical tasks every day and thought nothing of their
impact on humanity.
I was beaten. I was
frightened.
My first defensive act when I find myself helpless is to
fight.
I had referred this tax preparer to my daughter to help her
with an estate issue. Since I was
writing to her about issues around that project, I brought up the email I’d
just received. She confirmed that she
too had received abrupt and rude emails and had eventually fired this person
and hired another.
I got his name. Maybe
he could turn this around. I placed a
call and got him straight away. He
confirmed everything our current preparer said about the vacation rental. He confirmed their reasoning on
insufficient withholdings from our pension funds. He did not assure me that the five figure
would go away. He advised us to pay it
in full. His reasoning made sense.
But he did assure me that he could help us plan for less of
a “hit” next year.
I felt better, although I still was frightened about how I
was going to pay the bill. Even more
insidious was the unresolved irritation and discontent I held with our current
tax preparer. I hated that feeling of
unease that comes from a skirmish that festers into blame or judgment.
When I am hurt, I choose flight. I created my perfectly thought out
rationale. Certainly, I didn’t need to
repair a relationship with someone who I’d seen only once. I sure didn’t need to be around someone who
could be so callous. Like my daughter, I
could simply pay the bill and walk away forever. I was entitled to do just that.
I knew better.
This was a spiritual lesson.
I had the choice of what I was going to do. I had to take a different path then what I
may have used a year or more ago.
So I went into my forgiveness practice. I said the words, I felt the waves of
cleansing wash into my solar plexus and finally I was ready to see her in her
total humanity. I knew that those kinds
of emails come when there is a shaky foundation. Perhaps compassion wasn’t an option because
she was tired from too many returns due in a short timeline. Perhaps she isn’t able to take in challenges
to her work.
Perhaps……………………….Perhaps…………………………Perhaps……………….
It doesn’t matter. It
isn’t my job to know. It is my job to
let it go and heal the rift.
So I wrote a new email.
I apologized for sounding contentious.
I told her of my fears and how much I needed help to know how to protect
us from things getting worse next year.
I thanked her for her hard work.
I pressed “send”. I was free of
my negativity. I moved on.
The next day I got an answer. She apologized for being harsh. She is frustrated that the vacation rental is
not able to be a business deduction and she agrees that it should be. She offered to put us in touch with financial
advisors to help us build wealth. She
offered to change our vacation rental to a classification that would be a
legitimate deduction.
A later email indicated that next year’s tax hit would be
four figures, a figure that was very doable.
The issue was cleaned.
There was no residual negativity on either side. Knowing that, there was no residual negativity
splashing into my dealings with other parts of my life, so there would be no
toxic ripple effect.
When I went into savings account and took stock. I realized that the tax bill will be paid
with ease. Only my fear caused me to think
we were lacking in abundance. The truth
was that when insufficient deductions from pension funds caused a large end of
year dip in resources, the Resource of Spirit had the resources available. We are abundant and we will be fine. I left this situation feeling immense
gratitude.
In retrospect, the lessons are also abundant.
A fight response is good protection from deep fears but only
on the intellectual level.
A fear response is good only if recognized and
addressed. Removal of judgment and offering
the heart to forgiveness and intent on healing is the long term salve to our
individual and collective return to love.
Awareness of our abundance brings us gratitude, which is a
heart strengthener. Staying in fear or
judgment overworks the heart.
I gained more compassion through this experience for those
who are surprised with financial challenges and who need their own type of
spiritual and experiential support. I
send them my prayers for abundant opportunities.
In all, this experience brought me more than five figures of
learning and Grace. There have been many
times when I chose the fight response and charged through a situation because I
thought it was what I had to do. There
have been many times when fear mobilized me to hide from my accusers and I did
not think I had any way to address their attacks. But forgiveness and compassion always leads
to the gentle path.
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