What are your stats?

Many people like each New Year because it is a chance to start over, everything is fresh (or frozen) and new and possibilities are limitless. I personally like the New Year for a few other reasons - college basketball starts conference play (maybe this will finally be the year those unfairly good Jayhawks don't win the Big 12), NFL Playoffs, pitchers and catchers in less than two months and taxes.

Photo: Scott D. Weaver/K-State Athletics

One of those is not like the others I am well aware. I am also well aware that I am a rare breed that likes the idea of taxes. To be clear, I do not like paying them. It pains me every couple of weeks when I look at the payroll register and see much of the hard earned money being shipped off to the city, states and federal governments. I like taxes because the process of preparing for them gives you your 'stats' for the prior year both personally and for the business. Growing up, I loved to collect baseball cards. The pictures were nice and all but what I liked was the stats on the back (Topps was the best because they would fit an entire career's worth). So, as I prepare for our business and my personal taxes, I am excited to see how we stack up to prior years. We already know for the most part (or we would not be a very good accounting department). But, submitting the taxes makes it final. In the end, what we report on our years of tax reporting is the stats of our career and gives us a great indication of how we performed.

As we move into 2015, do not let the idea of preparing the 2014 taxes stress you out. Just look at it as the recap of your 2014 and a bunch of stats to improve on in 2015. 

 

By Jonathan Sterk, Controller, Loma Vista Nursery