Cruising and Taxes

April 10th

This time of year cruisers are just like everyone else, scrambling to get their taxes done, filed and paid.

Last year was a bit of an adventure.  Thanks to our friend and super CPA Rick, we got them filed - no problem.  Payment was an interesting challenge.  We were in Antigua ashore to use the internet at a popular sailors cafe/ice cream shop/bar to make the payments.  There were so many people there using the internet that the bandwidth was stretched thin aka...cutting in and out.  Tom would get part way through the payment process to have the internet drop.  Finally he got Missouri and the Fed paid but was not able to pay our Kansas taxes online for some reason.  This meant a phone call via the iPad and Magic Jack app.  It was cutting out as well so Tom was nearly shouting his ss#, dob and credit card info so the person on the other end could hear.  Of course so could anyone within 20 ft.  I know, not good!  But what else could we do.  It all turned out ok. 

This year we wanted to improve on the process.  The last two weeks as we have circumnavigated Antigua, we have found some powerful, free wifi that we can access from the boat.  Yesterday we departed Jolly Harbor to motor around to Falmouth (it is dead east into the tradewinds and thus the motoring), approximately a 2+ hour motor.  However, we stopped along the way in a nice little bay.  The anchor went down and Tom immediately set about paying all of our taxes online via the strong, consistent, free wifi.  Once completed, we checked that off the list, pulled up anchor and continued on to Falmouth.  Much better than last year.  

Last night at the first Red Hat party Sheila off vs Never Bored said "You know, we saw you in Five Islands and thought your idea of circumnavigating Antigua was great but we had to stay there for wifi to complete our USA and Canadian taxes."  

Death and taxes, eh?