The H & R Block commercials have started and that can only mean one thing, it’s tax season. Regardless of how you feel about taxes and how much you should be taxed, you gotta do them. That’s how they got Capone. It wasn’t the murder or moving alcohol through tunnels in the streets, it was tax evasion.

I know it can be scary to do taxes on your own for the first time, but it isn’t as bad as it seams. In fact, I don’t really mind doing my taxes, especially with services like Turbo Tax (state taxes are free this year, y’all! I’m not sponsored by Turbo Tax, but I wouldn’t say no.)

Now I say I don’t mind doing my taxes, but I have been audited once and narrowly avoided it again last year. It’s not that I’m careless or don’t understand how to file taxes, it’s that there are so many things to keep in mind. Do you go to school? (Yes.) Do you have health insurance? (Yes.) Can you claim any dependents? (I don’t think so.) Can anyone claim you as a dependent? (Wait, didn’t you just ask me that?) What was your favorite color when you were 9? (I don’t see why that matters.) How many times have you eaten rice in the last year? (Any specific kind of rice? I was eating a lot of white rice, but switched to brown.) Do you think Tim Burton and Helena Bonham Carter can work things out? (Probably, I don’t really know. Is this relevant?) Do you have opinions on the state of Yemen? (I mean, I guess so.)

Then, 2 hours later, you finally hit Submit and come out of a trance. The worst part comes next, the waiting. You’ve spent all this time, dredged up all the places you worked in the last year and entered your social security number into numerous boxes, and now you must wait for approval. Waiting for your taxes to be approved is like waiting to get into college. You know you’ve done all you can and you can’t change anything, but you can’t stop obsessing over whether or not you completed everything the right way.

It’s an intense process for sure, but it’s pretty cool to get some money. Technically it’s money you already paid to the government, but it’s still a nice mid-winter treat. So to all my 20-somethings out there, get your taxes done early. Don’t be like Capone, in any aspect of his life.