Civics Lesson
If you’re a parent, there are certain indelible moments in your child’s upbringing:
- the first time he makes it down the driveway without training wheels
- winning his first game as a little league pitcher after getting lit up for 10 consecutive innings and actually being nostalgic for his old position in right field that he begged to leave
- the first prom, his date made up in full Goth, black combat boots under long black dress, carnation corsage on the wrist
- high school graduation
just to name a few (and embellish them a bit).
Yesterday was another of this sort. My son’s W-2s arrived last week, and he was anxious to know what his refund would be. In previous years, I’ve mostly prepared his returns myself, discussed them quickly as he signed them and mailed them off. This year, however, I plopped my laptop in front of him and had him go through the Turbo Tax questionnaire himself. As each question came up, we discussed the issue being raised a little bit - questions like why I get to claim his exemption instead of him (I pay over 50% of his support, it’s worth more to me at my tax bracket than it is to him, I’VE GOT IT COMING, DAMN IT!!!), how itemizing vs. the standard deduction works, what are all those other boxes on the W-2. There aren’t that many instances where my arcane professional expertise (CPA/CFO) applies directly to an issue in his life, and it was sort of fun to be the smart one just once.
