Day 25: Taxes

You're no doubt asking yourself, "What could taxes possibly be doing in a blog about finding happy?" I admit it's not the first topic that comes to mind. After nearly 17 years living in Sweden, I still have to file tax returns in both countries (USA and Sweden). The deadline in the US for foreign returns is June 15 so I am thrilled to be done with plenty of time to spare!

That, however, is not the happy part. The happy part is that when I sat down to do the returns I found two files on my computer that made the entire process so much simpler. The first is a spreadsheet I used last year to convert all currencies to US dollars. The second is a Word document called Tax Events 2011 which I had totally forgotten about. I just had to smile at myself for having created that document, listing items I should remember when filing my US taxes. How cool is that?

No refund this year...but no taxes due either! And when I logged on to my Swedish bank account to check some figures, I noticed that the tax refund from the Swedish return had already been posted to the account. All in all, a pretty happy tax experience.