Taxing Time

Tax time is upon us again and as usual, I do the family taxes (using Turbo Tax).  It went pretty straightforward for Ashleigh and Elliott although I had to do non-resident taxes for Maryland and Massachusetts for them.  No problem - all done, filed, and refunds on the way.  Not so easy for Lucie and I.  (Every year we question how we, both with Master's Degrees, struggle with doing our taxes...)  We didn't get a certain form from Boston College and even though it was explained to me why not, I still didn't get it - cognitively or literally.  So I pressed on without it and got the return done.  This past year, the utility company Lucie used to work for liquidated its pension plan and we were forced to take a distribution.  It wasn't a whole lot and was an unexpected little surprise.  But nothing is free;  we paid the 20% federal tax up front but got hit with an ADDITIONAL 10% penalty for early withdrawal.  I tried to call the utility and went to their website for some filing advice but both were shut down.  Again, it wasn't a whole lot of money but it was just enough to push us to having to pay in instead of getting a refund.  Turbo Tax has a nice feature that shows a running calculation of your federal and state balance as you go but both federal and state were in the negative - and I hadn't even started the state yet!  When I finished the federal part, I was really discouraged about having to pay both.  So I told God that if we needed to pay in, He needed to help us out.  This morning I sat down to do the state portion and got to that same section about the early withdrawal penalty.  Yet there was a big difference.  In Delaware, there is no penalty on early withdrawal if the money is used for our or the kids' education.  Well it certainly was used for their education!  Even after significant scholarships, they have a balance to pay.  So I reported that the distribution was used for their education and was very happy to see that calculation on the screen started rolling like the big wheel on The Price is Right.  Not only did it roll up to the positive (refund), it was enough to cover the federal debt we owed!  Never saw that coming.  But isn't that the way with God?