kukukachu

March 27, 2015, Houston, TX

I’m finally going to get my shit together. 

Really.

My dad & sister referred me to an eccentric guy with a long beard and baby blue eyes who works behind the Boy Scouts building on the third floor in a windowless office piled with papers, boxes, outdated electronics and a yellow bound Blogging for Dummies book atop his file cabinet. 

He's a CPA.

I knew I’d like him because [bxA] the contact details on his website say, “Please ask a single question per message and keep it short.” 

That made me laugh and keep it simple, “I need help.”

Tonight was our first meeting.  We talked for hours.

The story of my tax problems begins with the expat assignment in London and meanders through the offshore bank account, the global economic crisis, my life savings being seized by the government because it was invested in Stanford's Ponzi scheme – while I was on a sea passage from India to the Maldives, my return to the US workforce in 2011, and HM Customs chasing me for UK taxes ever since.

I’ve been in denial for years. 

I pulled from my backpack a manila file folder stuffed with IRS letters, many unopened, and told him that this evening his tiny office would be my confessional.

When I got to the end of my complicated story he asked, “so what did you learn from the travels?”

Argh.  Seriously?