Lessons never learnt...

Just like the previous years, I HAD to wait till the last minute to submit my income tax returns. But, this year, the experience has somewhat been a kind of "blood-goes-upstairs" experience for me because of a few things -

Firstly - I decided to do my e-filing at 9:05a.m yesterday morning, thinking that it would only take half an hour (at the most), and I would be on time to reach the office at 10:15a.m. after sending Hilman to my MIL's. The problem started when my EA annual salary statement which all this while I thought was in my office bag, was NOT there when I wanted to do the e-filing. This resulted in the bedroom looking like a hurricane had just passed through it when I finished with turning everything in the room inside out and upside down to find that piece of paper, ONLY to find it NOT in the bedroom, but downstairs in the livingroom - in one of Hasya's paperbags... I must have put it there as a temporary measure earlier this month, only to have forgotten all about it. Nasib baik lah jumpa...

Secondly - I also had to search for all the insurance statements, and relevant receipts which I knew I had kept somewhere safe. Too safe in fact, sampai tak terjumpa! Spent about half an hour rummaging through all the letters received in the last 4 months. After finding them, of course, I had to decide which ones should be used for my filing, and which ones to be used for Ayah's. I decided to just use one policy for myself, and the rest of the policies, i.e. Ayah's and the kids' should go under Ayah's filing as he needs as many tax exemptions as possible so as to avoid paying a bomb for his income tax this year.

Thirdly - I happily clicked on the LHDN E-filing link, only to be asked to provide my Password before I could proceed. Aaaarrggghh! I totally forgot about it! So I tried my luck with a few probable passwords which I might have chosen for last year's e-filing rigmarole. Nope - none was accepted :( The problem was - I even forgot the answers to the challenge phrases to retrieve my password in the event I should forget my password - which obviously was not much of a help, huh?

Questions like -

"What's your favourite food?" Errr...too many to mention here, mate!

"What's your mother's name?" Errr...she has two names, by the way. And do you want her binti as well?

"Which primary school did you go to?" Errrr...you want the FULL name or just the initials?!

"What was your first transport?" Errr...I've forgotten whether I registered it as "Perodua", "Kembara", or "BMW"? Coz' my first transport memang BMW pun - Bas Mini Wilayah"...

Aawwwhhh, maaan?!

So how?!

So, I had to call this particular number to get a new password.

Fourthly - calling that number, or rather, WAITING for a human being to answer my call PERSONALLY (rather than a computer-prompted voice) took nearly an hour, and I had to call the number at least 6 times because the phone kept on getting cut-off! And finally, when I did manage to speak to a human being, it was another waiting game.

Because, fifthly - after successfully accessing the E-Borang with the new password, and after clicking on "Simpan & Teruskan" everytime I wanted to proceed to the next page, again I had to wait for nearly half an hour after every "Simpan & Teruskan", and that did not include the times when I had to fill in the pages again when suddenly out popped the "This page cannot be displayed" notification. Memang banyak kali I dah nak nangis semalam...

Sixthly - not wanting to abandon the mission after waiting for so long, I persevered, walaupun hati ni menyumpah-nyumpah! Mind you, I was not cursing the LHDN people. I was cursing myself for leaving it to the last minute! Tak serik-serik...

I FINALLY completed and submitted it at about 1:35p.m. And because I did not want to abandon the mission, especially when I had finally managed to access the E-Borang, Hilman had to miss school yesterday. His Mommy just could not possibly leave the gruelling task of filling in the E-Borang halfway just to send him to school, could she?! Of course NOT!

Seventhly - my PCB payment was short lah pulak for last year, unlike the previous years when the LHDN owed me money! So, this time around, I had to pay the balance. And thus, another waiting game began - nak buat E-payment lah pulak...And you guessed it - itu pun macam SIPPPUUUUUUTTT!!! Waited for nearly half an hour!

So, eighthly, I decided to make the payment manually. Went to send Hilman to my MIL's house at 3:00p.m., and went straight to CI*B and payment was finally made at 4:15p.m...

LEGAAAA....It's a nice feeling when you don't owe the government any money, kan? If not, takut nanti tak leh gi holiday overseas...Hehehe! But, of course, it's even nicer if we get the check from LHDN returning our overpaid tax, kan? ;))

Another thing I lega - it's a good thing that starting last year Ayah is only required to do his tax returns in June. If not, lagi haru I...

I just hope, there won't be a repeat of this next year.

But, but, but...Don't be surprised if this time next year, there'll be a cut and paste of this posting ajer coz' I'm pretty sure I'll be doing the exact same thing again ;)

Hehehe...