Duck Season! Wabbit Season! Tax Season!

Oh joy of joys, it's tax season. I'm sure Ken Jennings will forever remember H&R Block now...

Anyways, The Company put out our W2s online this week, so I started to do my taxes (and was close to getting a final number until I realized The Suffix owes me a W2 for a few weeks of severance last year). And I started looking at numbers that made absolutely no sense.

I know what my yearly salary should be (approximately).

I looked at my W2 and it was about 7.5% less than my yearly salary. Then I looked at my final paycheck of the year and it was 11.5% less than my yearly salary. That's quite a lot. I mean, we're talking about 42 days worth of salary appears to be missing in my YTD total.

So, I started doing math. I multiplied my bi-weekly rate by 26. I got approximately my salary. That made no sense to me how the numbers could be off that much.

I contacted Payroll and their response was "Your W2 amount is your yearly salary less your pre-tax items." -- That was fine, but what about the missing 11.5%?

They started looking at things for me, but I got antsy. So I started pulling up my paychecks.

I found my starting base bi-weekly amount and discovered I had four paychecks at that rate. Then I found my increase rate and had 22 at that rate. Mathed them up and bam, I got my yearly salary. But, it didn't match my final paycheck of the year.

Then I looked at my paychecks closer. Apparently on my fourth paycheck of the year my payroll company changed from The Company, Inc to The Company Finance & Accounting. I did some quick math and discovered that three paychecks at The Company, Inc totals the amount missing from my final paycheck of the year. Pulled up my Feb 20 paycheck and lo and behold, my YTD totals got reset.

I did further math and found my W2 does indeed match the totals from the two payroll companies less my pre-tax items, so that makes me feel better on my return. Now I just gotta wait for The Suffix to send me off my W2 so I can get my taxes filed.

In other news, I'm trying to find ways to get more deductions without stretching them too much. I know I can deduct a portion of my cell phone bill and DSL because I use them for work as unreimbursed expenses. Part of me thinks if I put work email on my phone I can deduct a portion of the Internet portion of the plan, but I'm thinking that may be stretching it a tad... plus, I don't want people to know I have the ability to be constantly available.

I've tried to count Bradley as a dependent, but, alas, he has no social security number. I find that unfair!

My mortgage interest is getting me quite a nice deduction, methinks. Obviously, it's nowhere near the amount that's getting paid into it, but every little bit helps.

Anyone got any other ideas of deductions I should try to go for? If not this year, next year?