Another First

Another first—that I wish hadn’t happened.  But I called an accountant for the first time in my life.  Actually I didn’t get the accountant; I got her “assistant.”  I had thought accountants just worked for large firms and there was no way to get a hold of one.  But I phoned the “assistant” for the guy at Morgan Stanley (another first—the Morgan Stanley account, I mean) who set up the CDs for the Tingle Family trust and she gave me the number for an accountant.  Apparently any Joe Blow can hire an accountant.

I had to do this because as far as I could figure out from the idiot lawyers who are doing the legal paper for the TFT that if I am ever going to be able to “disburse” the funds in the trust to my brothers, I have to file an income tax form for the deceased Joan for the period of her life in this tax year, 2007, and also a tax form for income generated by the trust, though I can figure out for the life of me how I am supposed to do that since I don’t know when the trust will be dissolved and thus don’t know how long the trust will continue to generate some interest.

So I am going to see an accountant.  I wonder how one dresses to see an accountant.  Not that I care, since I will dress the same as dress wherever I go—which is a t-shirt, plus jeans, and some form of footwear.  I have the feeling that maybe the accountant will be able to show that the trust is not going to generate enough income to be taxable; if this is the case, then I may be able to send the lawyers some official documentation of that fact and his legal mumbo-jumbo with the trust will be over.

But I am getting ahead of myself.

Meanwhile, the paralegal at the law office is doing a legal accounting of the monies in the trust based on information I sent him.  But then he sent an email saying that they, the lawyers, had not received paperwork—something called an Acknowledgement and something called a Receipt—from Brothers Dave and Steve.  So I called both of the guys and they said of course that they had sent in the paperwork.  Brother Dave, who knows about such things, had actually made copies of the documents he had signed and returned; and immediately faxed them off to the law office.

I don’t know what to make of a legal firm that loses paperwork like this.  This is not the first time either. I don’t know how Joan and WB found these particular incompetents.  But they have caused me no end of useless and needless anxiety due to their screw ups and in their inability to communicate with any clarity. 

But it’s all my fault I guess.  I could have had all the trust work done by a lawyer I found up here in SB, but the incompetents had set up the trust originally and had all the paper work so I figured it was best to go with them.

The next time my parents die I will make sure to hire the lawyer myself.

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