When you can't think of anything else to do ...

... you can always respond to Revenue Canada's audit notice.

Yup.

John is being audited.

For his 2008 medical expense claim. I guess this was the year for RevCan to spot check on medical expenses.

You see, I have phenomenally high medical costs; John has next to none.

So for income tax purposes, we combine our expenses and claim them against the lower income earner in the family (John has no shame -- he loves to tell people about his "rich wife.") Hence, John gets audited, rather than I.

And naturally, because we net-file and never actually send them anything anymore, it was to be expected that we would eventually raise a red flag.

My medical expenses for 2008 totalled over $18,000 -- but we only claimed our out-of-pocket costs of $8,000 (don't ever let anyone tell you that insurance doesn't pay!)

The bureaucrats who take forever to respond to a query from a taxpayer gave him a mere 30 days to provide the documentation that would prove our right to claim such a high expense. Which, really, shouldn't be too onerous a task because had we filed the "old way" we would have had to have all the documentation ready to mail by the end of April 2008! And I did.

But now I had to copy it all!

And that takes forever.

The file containing over $18,000 worth of receipts (prescription, massage, physiotherapy) is huge and contains a lot of receipts! And then there's all the insurance statements.

Because for Revenue Canada, it doesn't matter that we only claimed a portion of all those expenses. We have to prove the expense, prove the reimbursement, prove the fact that we paid the insurance company (duh, don't you think if they gave us $10,000 we must have paid the premiums?)

It seems to me if I have receipts that total more than double the amount I'm claiming, shouldn't that be sufficient for the purpose?

Oh well, the job's done now.

A full two weeks ahead of schedule.

Wonder if that will score any points?

In Other News:

After not eating anything and laying low all day yesterday, I slept very well again last night. Woke feeling quite rested again this morning. My right hip was still quite sore again though -- not sure what's up with that. I've been wearing the TENs machine all day today to try to get ahead of the pain. I don't know if I just got too far behind (what with all the abuses I heaped on myself without providing proper catch-up days in between.)

At least this morning I was able to eat breakfast and I even drank coffee, something I couldn't do yesterday (you know I'm not well if I can't have coffee in the morning!)

I do think the heat is taking a toll on me though -- I've never managed very well in these conditions.