Spring has rolled around again.  The birds are chirping, the trees are beginning to bloom and days are in the high 50s or 60s.  With the Spring comes that other great pleasure...Tax season!  Thank Sweet Jesus, the woman we hired last summer has straightened out our 2012, 2013 taxes and we seem to be in the clear.  We owe her big time.  I suppose if she asks for a kidney I'll have to give her one.  Now we have a new issue, but hopefully she is up to the challenge.  With GP's dad's passing there are all sorts of fun forms to fill out.  Apart from inheritance, GP is now also the second signature on his mother's accounts.  The US requires him to report on any and all accounts, investments, business interests where he is a co-signer.  Some of these interests have to be attached to tax forms, others have to be reported to homeland security!  This is all part of the knee-jerk reaction that we call the Patriot's Act.  It's ridiculous and complicated and no way on God's Green Earth do most Americans abroad do it or even know about it.  GP, in his mild paranoia, researches every possible way that we could be caught out and fined.  Ever heard of the Form 8938?  This form is "to report your specified foreign financial assets if the total value of all the specified foreign financial assets in which you have an interest is more than the appropriate reporting threshold.  See Reporting Thresholds Applying to Specified Individuals, later."   Evidently we are "specified individuals."  But mind you, "Filing form 8938 does not relieve you of the requirement to file FinCEN Form 114, Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR), if you are otherwise required to file FBAR.  Uh huh.  What the F does that even mean?  We have piles of papers on the table that we have had to scan and send to the accountant.  That's on top of the big fat envelope that we had V. mail for us when she arrived back in The States.  Oh the trees that we have killed!  I'm off to drown my sorrows.  Any good excuse!  By the way, Spring is also wine buying season!  Next weekend we are going shopping!!  xxoo me