This is one of those times when you will have to forgive me for not putting a lot of words out there. It may still take another day or two to get the mind right after the end of tax season. But let me start with two important words – thank you. Thank you for your trust and giving me the privilege to assist you during the tax filing season and throughout the year. Thank you for continuing to send referrals. The end of tax season is always a bit heartening even through the exhaustion. To have clients that return to my organization year after year, especially in this world of increasing options, is uplifting. It allows me to feel the value of what I provide and to strengthen those bonds that I make with many of my clients, and dare I even say friends. This is something that I feel every year, but it was augmented this year. The uncertainly of what one’s tax picture looked like was greater in the wake of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. For the most part, that uncertainty was quelled as some returns weren’t THAT different than previous years. And it’s always nice to give good news to people who worried that they may be receiving bad news – unfortunately that was far and in between the actual results for my client base. Most clients, though, received that bad news. I’m sure you have heard some of these stories through other means, so I will not elaborate much here. Just with the rule changes we had, there were bound to be some people on the bad side of them, and some ended up way on the bad side. Between the elimination of Miscellaneous Itemized Deductions affecting those that had the opportunity to deduct employee business expenses in the past and coupled with the limitation on State and Local Taxes (SALT) to $10,000 really harmed my client base. This by itself showed what I suspected: raise the tax bill for people living in our region. When you lose anywhere from $5000 to $40,000 in SALT it causes a major negative impact on your tax bill – one that decreased tax rates could not and does not offset the impact. Everyone lost the impact of exemptions. The illusion that raising the standard deduction was going to take care of this was not the case as the new standard deduction really included the exemptions. You didn’t get anything here – it was just marketed differently. If you were filing as Head of Household and you had two or more dependents in the past you lost. If you filed Married Filing Jointly and had more than two other dependents, you lost. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act did not live up to its billing. Personally, I feel that the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is poor legislation. It is a temporary law as most of the changes will go away after 2025. If you feel that the law should be changed the only way that happens is by an Act of Congress. You would need to contact your representatives and Senators and let them know how you feel. And yes, it wasn’t nearly as nice to deliver news to these people, but to have the ability to walk them through what changed, how it affected that final number, and to start thinking about what we could do to lessen the pain in the future was still heartening. Do not hesitate to contact me during the year to discuss your tax situation for 2019 and beyond. Let’s not wait until next year to have this discussion. This is because beyond the numbers is the comfort of knowing you are being taken care of and that someone has your back. That is something that I pride myself on here. But it is also something that I received from my clients. You are the ones who let me do what I do and the trust you place in me takes care of me. So yes, thank you. Now for another nap …