Nine Rubies Knitting

Form 571-L

July 31st, 2008

I hate doing unnecessary paperwork. Being a small business owner has driven me crazy with paperwork. Don’t get me wrong - I don’t mind paying taxes for all the nice parks, schools and the benefits we get for living in this beautiful, wonderful area. I don’t mind paying my personal income taxes, business taxes to the Federal and State governments once a year. I don’t mind paying sales tax - I do mind paying them monthly  though. But I have to give props to the state of California for finally allowing me to pay them online.

But county taxes? I know that a portion of the sales tax goes to the county. What I did not know until recently is that you are supposed to pay taxes to the county of San Mateo.

So I get an official notice from the county and now I have to figure out Form 571-L. The form wouldn’t be bad by itself but the lady at the county office wants our annual tax returns - I suspect she needs Form 4562 actually - and I am gathering those up as well. And then I have to make sure some of those numbers match and I have to figure out how much to take out for depreciation. Following me so far? No? Me neither. I lost myself a while back.

The final upshot is that I am going to owe the county something in the range of $200 for 2 YEARS! So, I am telling this story to my sister-in-law who is a CPA and she has a very pithy comment - it’s not even worth anyone’s time to process all this paperwork at the county office. That got me thinking - so what’s the point?

Entry Filed under: General