The Best Mistake I Ever Made

The Best Mistake I Ever Made

Your Father knows exactly what you need even before you ask him!

Matthew 6:8

Tax time is always entertaining. Trying to wade through the myriad forms, deductions, nondeductions, and new laws could burn out a huge computer, much less my brain. So every year I postpone tackling the task as long as possible, hoping that the longer I wait the less money I will owe. Not!

For several years, I had a CPA who prepared my taxes. Then I became tired of paying him so much money, and my bookkeeper and I began doing them instead. That was not the wisest course of action.

We worked through my taxes for the current tax year, using the previous year’s forms prepared by the CPA as a guide so we would not forget anything. In the process, we entered my deduction for health insurance premiums—100 percent deductible for self-employed people. But when I looked at the previous year’s form, no amount had been entered for health insurance premiums. Strange, I thought. Barbara did not know why either. It was obviously a mistake.

So I pulled out my records from the previous year and eventually found that I had paid more than $6,000 in premiums, which the CPA had failed to claim. (See me smiling?) We downloaded a form to file an amendment to the previous year’s taxes, filled it out, and discovered the IRS owed me $1,978. Woo hoo!

Then we continued the current year’s filing, holding our breaths as the final “taxes due” number was calculated. Having had very little work for more than a year, I had no idea how I would be able to pay it, no matter how much it was. When Barbara hit “total,” it came out to $1,976. I started laughing with glee. And I think I heard God laughing in the background too.

Sweet Father, thank you for always anticipating what I will need and providing it even before I know to ask. What a great Father you are! Amen.