Doing the right thing sucks. It sucks big fat rocks.
Been working on my taxes, y’see. My taxes are pretty simple, except that I’m a Canadian citizen living in the U.S. on a student visa. Whether I’m a resident or a non-resident for tax purposes in a non-trivial question.
I suspect that I’m a non-resident, however, so I fill out my 1040NR and discover that I owe the feds over $280. Which is for me a really significant chunk of change. But I’m not certain that I’m a non-resident (this is my fifth year of study, and that may change things), and I want to be certain before I fork over that much cash. So I check publication 519…still not certain. So I call the IRS toll-free number, wait on hold, leave a message.
The next day a very nice tax lawyer from the IRS calls me back. I explain things, but when I get to the point where I switched from an F-1 visa to a J-1 visa he says “Wait a minute, J-1’s are only exempt individuals for two years not five.” According to mister friendly tax lawyer, I’m a resident after all.
So today I download and fill out a form 1040 and discover…that the feds owe me 950 bucks?!? Holy crap!
And then, it happens. My conscience, my thrice-damned, ass-licking, piss-shitting conscience, says “That can’t be right. Are you sure?” So I go back to publication 519. And it seems that teachers on J visas are only exempt individuals for two years, but students on J visas are exempt individuals for five years just like students on F visas. Mr. tax lawyer never asked if I was a student or a teacher, he stopped right after the part about which visa I had.
In the space of three days I’ve gone from owing $280 to being owed $950, and back to owing $280 again.
FUCK.
And the worst part? Even though 99% of my brain is screaming at me that I could probably file a 1040 and no one would even care, the 1% that is my conscience is going to make me file as a non-resident. In other words, throwing away over 1200 motherfucking dollars.
Because it’s the right thing to do. Dammit. DAMMIT!