It’s April 16th, and for those of us here in les États-Unis, that means one thing: Tax Day is over!

Well, almost. Almost because there is a wonderful option called Form 4868 that, if filed, grants an automatic six month extension for filing your return. A cause for celebration, yes? Not quite.

You see, what it doesn’t say, until you start reading the fine print in the instructions, is that it gives you an extension of time to file your return, but not an extension of time to pay the taxes you owe. The result? Even though they’ll give you until October to file your return — which determines how much you owe the government (or how much it owes you) — you’re still required to pay up in full by April 15. What kind of sense does that make? (Answer: Government sense.)

Thankfully, I’m obsessive compulsive about keeping records, and as a result, I have every receipt for every purchase I made last year. Yes, I know it’s abnormal, but I’m okay with that. For the first half of the year, all the receipts that are actually deductible are attached to letter-sized sheets of paper, numbered, entered into a spreadsheet by category along with their number, and filed by month. Again, I know I’m abnormal, but I’m okay with it.

The last half of the year isn’t so neatly arranged; all the receipts are there, but I was busy for several months and sick for a couple others, and they didn’t get carefully arranged, entered, and filed, which means it has to be done now. I dreaded the task right up until noon yesterday, when I broke down and filed Form 4868. I was glad the first half of the year had been done, because it made it very easy to add up my deductions, see that I had enough that what I had already paid in would cover things, and go on my happy way.

Of course, all I’ve done is bought myself some time. Now I have to actually dig through this stuff — not my favorite task, as my usually-spotless desk looks like an accountant exploded over it.

Hrumph.