Stealth Trip to the Island

Posted by DSC on February 1, 2014 in Uncategorized |No Comments

Happy New Year! April 15th is just around the corner and guess who did four (4!) (Really, 4) years of her parents taxes last year? Why, yes! You are SO perceptive! It was me!! Oh, and my daughter’s (easy), and mine and my husband’s (not easy). Six returns for someone who hung up her tax return apron half a decade ago, it a tad much. If there is a purgatory, I am hoping for massive credit, not exemptions, but flat out credit for this benevolence.

It was during my father’s hospitalization early last year that I found letters from the IRS at my parent’s Island home asking, ‘Would you pretty please file your 2009 and 2010 returns? A letter for 2011 couldn’t be far behind. Mom knew the returns hadn’t been filed but had never seen the letters. She quickly became agitated as I started to gather the paper I’d need to put together a tax picture. She tried to micromanage the manner in which I picked up paper my legally blind father had attempted, and failed, to organize and would hear nothing about the fact these documents could have been just as organized if one threw them in the air and then been gathered into piles of the pieces lying closest together. It’s when she rounded on me at her shrillest, as I knelt on a rug scattered with rat dropping in their living room, again proclaiming the precision of my dad’s filing techniques, that I burst into tears, told her she had NO idea what was going on and that she was at risk of the IRS sweeping one of their bank accounts for however much they desired because of “THESE” as I shook the IRS letters at her from the floor. Well, that got her attention. She quietly asked me, “What can I do?” I looked at the floor, saw the car registration bill, looking untouched and sent her outside to see what year sticker was on the license plate of her car. The second she turned her back, I was a paper moving machine. I had 90 seconds of uninterrupted boxing of, ah, bio-diverse paper. Long story short, I removed 5 banker boxes of paper from the house that trip. Three months later, another 2 boxes of paper came out. All four years were filed yielding 100% refunds, covering most of what they’ve given to charity over those four year. It’s not an insignificant amount of money.

Mom’s trip here this month was put off daily for four days because she was still gathering the documents I needed for her 2013 tax return. When she gave me the box I was astonished to find return of address labels, envelopes with return address labels on them, new and used empty file folders, used empty file folder hangers, her 2014 New Medical Insurance folder that we’d created with a red folder and BIG letters so she’d be able to find it and about one of each kind of document I’d asked her for. It was at this moment I decided I’d be making my stealth trip.

The trip to the Island was fruitful. While I didn’t find as much as I’d hoped to, I filled the car with, amongst other things, every medical related piece of paper I could fine, same with charity, bank statements, a credit card statement, and a piece art (a fixture of my childhood) that has been collecting spider webs and rat pooh in the ceramic studio for years. Things of note:
·         The house smelled like propane when I opened it up. Mom left a valve on on the stove just enough to cause a small leak.
·       The place wasn’t as bad as I feared it was going to be, (nor does it smell like smoke any longer), except for her office, which was a disaster.
  •         It’s abundantly clear that she puts something down on her desk, places something on top of it (all crisscross, along a 10’ long desk) rendering the items underneath non-existent.
  •       The closet shelves were overflowing with many a ‘satchel,’ most of which are gifts from grateful charities. I wasn’t going to go through all those satchels but paused to explore a rather lovely tote bag and found three pieces of Navajo jewelry that she wore all the time when I was a kid. Each was in a Ziploc bag. I placed them in an empty jewelry box dad made in her bedroom and then went through every single satchel. Nothing else needed to be moved.
  •       There were rat dropping in the office closet, but the rest of the house was clear. This is good in that the Island pest folks were correct. Their treatment took care of the problem. It’s bad in that mom never finished the cleanup job I started.  
  •       There are 20 ‘very useful’ empty boxes in the office. It was hard not to take them all to the recycling. I wasn’t there to clean.  
  •       I found the book of directions and contacts my daughter made for mom in a satchel and placed it against the satchel. This and the jewelry are the only two items I purposefully moved within the house. Hopefully, the book will make its way back into the car.  
  •       I found the Neptune Society urns in a corner of the office, under 3 very useful boxes. They are sealed. I will ‘find’ them next time I go up.  
  •       There were multiple (5-7) printouts of an e-mail correspondence between Mom and dad’s ex-wife. I found them everywhere. Buried under useful boxes, on the floor under the printer, on the printer etc. It’s amazing how good mom sounds when she writes, even though she’s repetitive.

In General:

  •       Overall, I’d say there are 50 ‘very useful’ boxes in an 800 sqft house.
  •       There is a growing mound of paper on the couch again.
  •       There must be 435 old magazines. Highbrow, of course, but really.
  •       The area she pays bills wasn’t too bad, but was too unorganized to be useful. I gathered up about 10 charity ‘bills’ waiting to be paid from this area and will deal with them accordingly.
  •       Happily, I did not find any gin bottles in the recycle.
  •       There are plastic bags in the linen closet that are so old that they are falling apart.
  •       I found and removed Ambien and Vicoden. She will miss both of these.
  •       There was a dish, sitting on dad’s pill box that had an Ambien and two other pills I didn’t recognize.
  •       In the fridge were a glass of OJ and half a quart of soup. She’s leaving things for dad    again. Not as ‘bad’ as when she left for the Island on New Years Eve, but clearly, that’s what’s going on.

I have most of the tax docs I need to proceed. A few more income pieces of the puzzle to fill in ought to arrive this coming week. I will call her everyday once she returns home to coach her to get them in the mail to me. I hope my days of being a PI are over but kinda doubt it.

Oh, the tabs on her car were up to date!

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