Taxes Done Already
Jan. 26th, 2006 05:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kevin_standleeI have a pretty simple income tax situation (income from wages, a little bit of interest), so it was only an hour or so of communing with TurboTax last week to complete my income tax return. It would have been less, but I went ahead and worked through the questions to see if the money I spent on medical expenses and on convention expenses attributable to SFSFC might add up to enough to matter (it does not).
I have had complicated situations in past years, such as the couple of years when I was was traveling on SFSFC/ConJose business so much that I rang up enough expenses to make itemizing matter. Another complicated situation was when ConJose paid some "level playing field" travel expenses -- that is, for those of us who had to be at the con either way early or late, the con paid for the extra hotel nights on the edges. Because I'd deducted the expense in a prior year, I had to report the reimbursement as "other income." If I had not taken the charitable deduction, I would not have needed to report the reimbursement.
(Digression: I bet very few authors who take a Worldcon membership as a tax deductible business expense take the subsequent reimbursement as income.)
Kudos to my employer for making my W-2 available online, so it was in my hands about ten days earlier than usual.
I discussed the return with Lisa; since I'm filing electronically, she doesn't have to sign it right away, although of course she'll need to sign the copy for our files. We'll take care of this at LastGuestCon this weekend.
Having submitted the returns electronically, I went back today to confirm that the filings had gone through so I could claim the rebate on the filing fee from Intuit. (They had, and I duly sent off the rebate request form.)
The state income tax refund is already credited to my bank account. The federal refund should be here next week sometime. Neither is very large. Had it been a larger amount, I would have increased my 401(k) contribution from its current 10% to offset it accordingly. Why should I loan money to the government for nothing when it can be earning me interest in my 401(k) account? The fact that the refunds are small means I've got the factors just about right.
I have had complicated situations in past years, such as the couple of years when I was was traveling on SFSFC/ConJose business so much that I rang up enough expenses to make itemizing matter. Another complicated situation was when ConJose paid some "level playing field" travel expenses -- that is, for those of us who had to be at the con either way early or late, the con paid for the extra hotel nights on the edges. Because I'd deducted the expense in a prior year, I had to report the reimbursement as "other income." If I had not taken the charitable deduction, I would not have needed to report the reimbursement.
(Digression: I bet very few authors who take a Worldcon membership as a tax deductible business expense take the subsequent reimbursement as income.)
Kudos to my employer for making my W-2 available online, so it was in my hands about ten days earlier than usual.
I discussed the return with Lisa; since I'm filing electronically, she doesn't have to sign it right away, although of course she'll need to sign the copy for our files. We'll take care of this at LastGuestCon this weekend.
Having submitted the returns electronically, I went back today to confirm that the filings had gone through so I could claim the rebate on the filing fee from Intuit. (They had, and I duly sent off the rebate request form.)
The state income tax refund is already credited to my bank account. The federal refund should be here next week sometime. Neither is very large. Had it been a larger amount, I would have increased my 401(k) contribution from its current 10% to offset it accordingly. Why should I loan money to the government for nothing when it can be earning me interest in my 401(k) account? The fact that the refunds are small means I've got the factors just about right.
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no subject
Date: 2006-01-27 02:02 am (UTC)PTHPTHPTHPTHPTHPTHPHTPHTPHTPHTPH
no subject
Date: 2006-01-27 03:24 am (UTC)I'm not fond of paying the IRS, and I've been joyful that we haven't had to in recent years. Then again, the IRS's motto seems to be, "Olim habeas eorum pecuniam, numquam eam reddis: prima regula quaesitus."
no subject
Date: 2006-01-27 03:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-27 04:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-27 04:55 am (UTC)(I guess this makes me a geek. No, wait, my Trek ring tone already made me a geek)
no subject
Date: 2006-01-27 04:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-27 04:26 pm (UTC)I like TurboTax. It walks me through things and makes sure I hit all the checklist items. I also do my grandfather's taxes with it (which makes me feel better about paying the money for the program each year), but he also has a simple situation, with just pension income. I used to do a friend's taxes for him as well, but after he bought a house and started a business, his tax situation got more complicated and he (rightly IMO) started consulting a tax professional.
lucky dog ...
Date: 2006-01-28 05:50 am (UTC)This year both Susan and I will have consulting income. Two schedule C's. At least we will probably get some more back and didn't have to file estimated taxes. I don't know if she got the 1099 from her consulting gig yet. I know I haven't.
Next year it looks like it is time for estimated taxes unless we get salaried (as opposed to 1099) jobs.