There's one for you, nineteen for me

Doing my taxes is always one of those things that in advance feels like it's going to take forever and end up making me mad. Sometimes that's true; being a self-employed person makes it a lot more complicated than it was in the days where I just had a W-2 or two and could file a 1040EZ in five minutes on the phone. But, for better or worse, my business activity is a lot less than what it had been in pre-COVID years so it actually wasn't so time-consuming this time around. I think I spent around two hours on it start to finish.

It didn't make me as mad, either, because I don't owe as much as has been typical. Usually I owe the Feds a couple of grand or more, but not this year! The upside of not making as much money, I guess. My income was down considerably in ’25, thanks to the loss of a client or two and umping fewer games on the side. But I'm still a little mad, because (a) I know the current edition of the Federal government will misuse my (and everyone else's) tax money; and (b) I also know that next year's return will be worse because of Republican fuckery in ’25 affecting 2026 tax policy. Between ACA subsidy cuts, loads of fraud and graft conducted by the Felon47 regime, and an even further shifting of the tax burden off the Epstein Class and onto the rest of us, this is and will continue to be a painful year, financially and otherwise.

But for now I only had to cut a check with three digits before the decimal, so I'll take the "win."