The tax person cometh
So yesterday was tax day. Hope all y’all did your taxes. I did mine a few weeks ago when I was procrastinating on doing the things that I should have been doing. This is the first year that I had to pay any serious coin to the CRA¹, what with having been a student up until last year, I (a) made no money and (b) had oodles and oodles of education & tuition credits to cover the wee bit of money that I did make. I used up the last of my education & tuition credits and I’ve finally started up an RRSP & made pension contributions so even though I have a big girl job, I’m still getting a refund, which is nice. And which will be put directly towards my student loans so that I can get those paid off sometimes before I retire².
While doing my taxes, I was reminded that I’m something of a pack rat. I’m far better than I used to be (see: the Great Garbage Purge of 2006), but I’m still holding on to a lot of unnecessary stuff, especially papers³. But it is a kind of neat trip down memory lane to discover, for example, that I have my first ever T4 slip. Apparently I made $2406.04 working at the donut store in 1991. I think you only need to keep your tax returns for 7 years, but it’s kinda cool to have my very first T4. Yes, I just said a T4 was cool. I am officially lame.
¹Canada Revenue Agency
²Anyone interested in donating to the “Pay Off Dr. Beth’s Student Loans” fund? I take cash, cheque d PayPal. 😉
³I mean, do I really need to have every paper I cited in my thesis and all other papers I wrote during my PhD, plus those I used to study for comps? Probably not. I think I need to do another purge and focus on getting rid of my unnecessary papers.
Comments |7|
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Beth, you’re officially a geek. And I think you’re awesome.
6 years, I believe, not 7.
I have some of my old tax stuff but none from that far back. I think my first is from 1994 which I may still have.
Did you notice my Facebook status about my tax return? :p
I did not. Facebook is so 2007. =P Except for Scrabulous. I’ll go check it now.
You know, if you’d had a link to your Paypal account, I would have donated like four grand to the cause. But you didn’t. And now the moment is gone.
They give out T4s for being a donut hut slut?
And I always thought that it was 7 years, too. But Kalev is right: http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/tax/individuals/topics/income-tax/keeping/menu-e.html
Hooray for tax returns!
@Raul – Right back at ya!
@Kalev – You didn’t work until 1994? Must be because you are a spoiled private school brat =P
@Dave – aaaaaaaaahhhhh! noooooooooo!
@Sarah – Alas, if only my T4 actually said “Donut Hut Slut” on it!
@Beth – you don’t have to file unless you make over the personal exemption, which I never did until I started co-op in 1994. Just for your and everyone else’s edification, while I was a “spoiled private school brat” I worked for MCDONALD’S for 1 year and 9 months, so don’t be throwing all your jealousy at me just because you had to go to a fucked-up Catholic school and got a substandard education. 😛 Otherwise I will have someone from the Old Boys’ Network blacklist you and you’ll never get your black AMEX card… EVAR! Plus you can totally forget the golf club and yacht club memberships, baby. Say goodbye to any upward social mobility you might have been aiming for!
@Sarah: I always knew I liked you but the fact that you said I was right in public on Beth’s blog just makes me like you even more. 😀
(And no, it wasn’t the McDonald’s in Shaughnessy or Kerrisdale or the British Properties, okay?!)