It's glorious

Recall that I enjoy taxes so much (preparing them, not paying them) that I used to moonlight as a tax preparer. My own federal tax return used to be three pages, maybe four if we were adopting a child that year or if I sold a little bit of stock or something. It took me about twenty minutes to do my taxes each year.

I'm pleased to report that my 2008 tax return, which is the first one that covers our time in Switzerland, runs 52 pages. (And no, I didn't prepare it myself.) It's glorious. It's like a work of art. It contains forms covering the foreign housing credit, the form to get an extension to see if you qualify for the foreign tax credit, the form showing that you actually do qualify for the foreign tax credit, and the form used to compute the foreign tax credit once you've established that you do indeed qualify. It's got the alternative minimum tax and various explanatory statements and all sorts of other goodies. I almost weep for joy as I read through its pages. I hope that someday, each of you will have the opportunity to file a tax return that runs 52 pages. There's no feeling like it in the world.