I had a weird dream last night that I was hosting some kind of fundraiser and, for reasons I couldn't really comprehend even in the dream, casually wrote a $10,000 check to the charity!

In the dream I was inwardly groaning, thinking about how I was going to have to get a bunch of extra work to replenish the checking account. But I wasn't panicking, which was interesting. I think it's because I now know how to handle even huge setbacks, so my dreams can't really use that to stress me out anymore.

I finished AS's taxes yesterday. I was pleasantly surprised. First of all, I had it in my head that she owed about $1800 on federal. I think I got mixed up because recently we got a letter from the IRS claiming she owed about that much on her 2009 taxes (she's already faxed them records to prove that they incorrectly added a zero to one of her 1099s). Anyway, according to my second runthrough, which matched my first one (love when it matches up and I don't have to do a third, tiebreaker round), she owed $1617. Sounds like a lot, but less than I was thinking, AND, no penalty for underpayment! So we got an interest-free loan from the federal government, and we have until April 18 to pay them back. Woo hoo!

Then I did her state taxes. Usually, for some reason, people end up owing or getting a much smaller refund on their MN taxes compared with their federal, so I was really expecting to owe big-time. Turns out AS is due a $28 refund! That one I'll send off right away, so we can apply the $28 to our federal bill.

I've decided to send the IRS $400 as an estimated quarterly payment on 2011 taxes for AS. If it looks like she's getting as much or more freelance work this year, I'll up the amounts in subsequent quarters. I did pay off a student loan so her interest deduction will be lower next year.

Still haven't heard from my paid tax preparer, even though two weeks ago he said he hoped to get it to me in a couple days. I don't like having this taken out of my hands AT ALL. I'm so used to being the one in control on my taxes. If I get my copy from him and it looks easy to replicate what he does, I'm going back to doing it myself.

If we don't have to declare NT's UK income, I have high hopes that we'll about break even. We might owe a bit; I think I was pretty accurate in changing my withholdings after AA's birth, except I forgot our mortgage's interest rate dropped and thus our itemized deductions are much less this year.

I did see some mention about a "foreign income exclusion" with a minimum of $92,000 or something. We make about $15,000 on NT's flat, so if that's the case maybe we don't have to report, and won't have to revise our returns from previous years, paying penalties etc.

Although, one of the things on the questionnaire from the tax guy was about PMI. Is that deductible if you itemize?? I never have. So if he adds that to our itemized deductions, might be worth looking into whether it was deductible in past years. Can I revise to increase deductions, and if so, how far back? I'm not going to bother looking into it until I see whether he includes it on Schedule A.

(International friends, sorry for all the blabbing about U.S. tax law. I know it makes no sense.)