1040s: Fill & Download for Free

Have we not learned yet that the answer to any question along the lines of “Why does Trump say…?” is “because he thinks it is useful to him at that moment”?It doesn’t matter whether it’s true or false. It doesn’t matter if it contradicts something he said two months ago, or five minutes ago, or sometimes even in the same tweet. It’s what he thinks people want to hear.

It took me eleven years, chronologically, to get my undergraduate degree. But there were terms where I did not attend at all, and terms where I was enrolled half time outnumbered terms where I was enrolled full time. During most of this time I was also holding down one, two, even three part time jobs, along with a couple of small businesses. (I've filed more 1040s with a schedule SE attached than without.)One of the most responsible people I've ever known was my roommate for a semester. He had gone long on his degree program because his duties in the Air Force had prevented him from scheduling a couple of degree requirements on time. How terribly irresponsible of him to put his military obligations ahead of completing his degree in precisely four years. (By the way, the program he was in, aeronautical engineering, has so many interlocking degree requirements that less than 25 percent of students in it at my old school completed the program in four years, not because they have to repeat classes, but just because scheduling into all the required classes with limited seats is logistically very difficult.)

I have two examples, one on each side of the Atlantic, of dealing with the bureaucracy surrounding a death.My British husband died in August of 1991. Once I had the OK from the coroner, I had to register his death at the local registrar’s office. A friend drove me there. It took about 10 minutes to state his name, birth date, birth place, his occupation, his father’s name and his father’s occupation and check the spelling. (I got the birthplace wrong, sadly, but I was close.) A few more minutes elapsed while this was typed up and I was given several copies of the death certificate. He died intestate. A glance at his death certificate was all the bank needed to unfreeze our joint account into my name (I had to sign a paper stating I’d reimburse the bank if the money transferred did not all belong to me by right of the administration of his estate). The house we owned had to be valued, but then was immediately transferred into my name, as was our remaining mortgage. The tax office refunded to me a small amount of tax he’d overpaid before he died, without my requesting it. The bureaucracy was all over and done with in a matter of a couple of months.My American mother died in 2003. The undertaker’s firm helped me with the immediate paperwork regarding her death. I supplied similar information to that I’d supplied for my husband: name, maiden name, birth date, birth place, occupation, etc. Some days later I received several copies of her death certificates (there were two different forms of death certificate), with a long list of instructions about informing the social security office, various other offices, etc. These instructions were full of acronyms and the titles of offices and officers I had no knowledge of as I hadn’t lived in the US for over 35 years. I tried to inform the social security office, which involved a large number of phone calls and endless waiting. I never seemed to have the information or the form that they needed, so I’d be sent back to get it (from where???). For some years I had been a joint account holder on my mother’s bank account, so I could pay bills on her behalf. The bank needed two copies of the death certificate, a notarized statement from me, sight of my mother’s will. It took about a month and a half to transfer the money solely into my name, during which time the joint account was blocked and I had to pay expenses out of my British bank account (which was another nightmare in itself).I never did manage to satisfy the social security office, even though all I wanted to do was state that they no longer needed to pay her social security.She was no longer filling in 1040s (I believe because all she lived on was her social security, she didn’t have to), but I couldn’t find anyone who would verify to me that there was no further need to file any returns.Trying to sell her house was another nightmare of back-and-forth shuffling with paperwork, etc., etc.It was a year and a bit before I could be certain that it was all taken care of.