sillygoosegirl | I freaking hate filing taxes

I also hate bonuses.

In January of last year, I quit my job and got my final paycheck in Illinois, which also included a contribution to my 401k.
In March of last year, I became eligable for the 401k at my current job in Wisconsin and set my contributions such that I would end the year with a total 401k contribution just below the federal limit.
On December 22nd, I got a bonus, and they made a contribution to my 401k putting me above the limit.

Crap.

So I do the run around with Fidelity. They tell me that payroll at my company will magically know what happened and take care of it. I don't really believe them because payroll at my current job doesn't normally talk to payroll at my old job. So I get the run around from payroll where they tell me to talk to Fidelity, then eventually send me a form to fill out and send to Fidelity. Said form has all kinds of questions on it which I cannot answer, like does my company use Fidelities "discrimination testing" (whatever that is). I send the form back to payroll with my pertinent info.

Eventually, I contact payroll again because tax day is coming and I want to get my taxes in on time. They tell me that I should be hearing from Fidelity any time, and no, I wont be getting a corrected W2. This seems odd, but I figure they probably know what they are doing, and if not, if they aren't going to give me a corrected W2, then that's their problem.

So Tuesday and Thursday nights Josh and I do our taxes... which involves all kinds of unsavory activities, like filling out the AMT form--which was, I do believe, created by Satan--to prove that we do not actually owe AMT. On Thursday, I get the promised check from Fidelity (for some punny amount, made even more punny by having lost well over 25% of it's value), along with a letter saying to keep the paperwork and that I will get a form in January of next year so I can deal with it on my taxes for 2009. I still think this is kind of a strange way to handle it, but then again, I didn't expect it to make sense. So I believe them.

So yesterday we put our tax returns in the mail.

And then today I get another letter from Fidelity explaining that the form coming to me in January of next year will be a 1099 allowing us to claim the loss on our 2009 taxes, but don't forget to claim the extra income on your 2008 taxes.

So now we have to go through all the paperwork again, so that we can send an extra 25% of the amount to the IRS, about 99% of an extra 6.5% to Wisconsin, and about 1% of an extra 3% to Illinois. Too bad I can't just cut the checks just like that and put them in the mail...