Every few months, I put off the inevitable and endure the pure torture: I tape together a random assortment of receipts, pharmacy and physician statements, explanation of benefits forms, etc. all in the hopes that the magic genie through our flexible spending plan will refund our own money back to us. It's torture. It's like when I had to fill out a time and expense report when I worked for a now defunct accounting firm after I had a big round of travel...(talk about a mish mash of receipts!)
In these modern days of technology, I at least was able to fill out the request form electronically, but here comes the fun part, which is more like a 4th grade cut and paste project. Armed with my tape dispenser, I carefully tape each receipt to a piece of printer paper, coded with a numeral to match the corresponding entry on the request form.
Every year I question if the tax savings are really worth my time and energy. Doesn't my sanity count for something? I am the designated family form filler-outer, and I just dread this activity intensely! Our last legitimate request for $86 was denied because they wanted more info. So I put my happy bottom back in my car ALONG with my 16 month old, drove over to the doctor's office, AND got a more detailed print out. And now the detail is taped and coded. I hope that was worth the approximately $24 in tax savings. I could have been sleeping, cleaning my kitchen, or even blogging for that matter.
In this world of quick and easy, Uncle Sam wanted us to get our tax savings with some real sweat equity.
1 comment:
I think that's what they are counting on, that we will all get fed up with the cutting and pasting so they can keep our money. ;)
Post a Comment