I love doing taxes and will help out any friend as long as theirs aren't too complicated. This year I did taxes for a friend who has several different kinds of investments--that was different! Most of the ones I do are fairly straightforward, but I do love a challenge. The Tax Code is like a choose-your-own-adventure book in my geeky world.

But the other night I had to do British taxes! NT has never really had to do taxes; in the UK, the government will figure them out for you in most cases. But since he still has his flat in England and rents it out, that portion had to be figured out. I have the best financial head in the household, so it was my job.

At least we didn't have to calculate the tax, just send them figures related to the rental property. But still, it was so crazy to do, after being so comfortable with the IRS's way of wording things and organizing forms.

Turns out there was a loss of about 600 pounds ($1200) for the year ended April 4, 2007, due to maintenance that had to be done in order to rent the flat. I think that's good news, though; can't imagine the UK government will be able to tax us since we had no income, and we can carry that loss over to future years, so hopefully we won't have to pay any British taxes until we're in a better place to do so.

I'm also hoping that having no UK income will simplify my and NT's 2007 U.S. taxes. I ended up doing Married Filing Separately for 2006, since he had UK income and no U.S. income. I missed out on a little bit of deductions as a result, but I was afraid of all the extra forms that would come with reporting his international income!

I still may end up hiring someone this year just to make sure I'm not missing any important legal requirements. Sad since I'm H&R Block-certified, but I didn't get into learning anything very complicated when I worked for them.