tax induced dying gurgles....

[Tabouli]

glUuurghHhglgglglglg...

2:45am and I've finally finally finally struggled my way through the impenetrable maze that is the Income Tax Return statement, having spent approximately 6 hours of downloading and reading and cross-referencing and swearing at "help" files and "guides" and "supplements" and "tax software" all with long identification codes like NAT 3416-8.2000 which seem to have been written by some unholy cross between an accountant, a lawyer and a Dictionary of Undefined but Extremely Important Obscure Financial Terms Which We Change Every Year Just So You Don't Get Bored.

Is every other country's tax system as user-offensive as Australia's?  Who is (ir)responsible for this stuff?  I mean, English is my native language, and I have far too much formal education for my own good, and *I* was floundering for hours and totally baffled by all the obscure abbreviations and terminology and lack of a glossary and proper explanations.  How are people from non-English speaking backgrounds, or people who left school early supposed to stand a chance??

Of course, it doesn't help that I have left this to the last possible moment as usual and therefore have to use e-tax (!), and moreover have a newly established small business, a major employer, a few minor employers, a termination payout and a minuscule shares dividend ($34!!  I'm rich!), which considerably adds to the complication.  Every time I started filling something in, I turned out to need another supplementary form full of obscure terms and abbreviations which I then had to spend hours failing to find definitions for on the website.

And they wanted me to calculate depreciation on my assets over $1000 using either the Prime Cost or Depreciating Value calculations depending on the expected life of the product, provided they were purchased after 11:45 on the 21st of September 1999 (go figure) and depending on how many days you used it for self-education expenses, which left me totally at a loss, with a computer that cost over $1000 which I bought  *before* 21/9/99 but only used for self-education *after* then, at which time it would have depreciated to *below* $1000, so is it claimable, and how long is a computer supposed to last anyway, and they wouldn't let me enter that my payee hadn't withheld tax from my business payments, although this wouldn't be an issue if I'd completed a PBS certification (??), etc.etc.etc.aaARGHhhHH...

Enough of this foolish determination to do it all myself. Next year I am hiring an accountant...

Tabouli.

(err, sorry, just venting)


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