Tag Archive for: income tax

Oh, Boy, Doing Income Tax Makes Me Wonder by Marilyn Meredith

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I’ve always done my own income tax even back when I had to do it by hand on all the forms.

No I do it using Turbo Tax, much easier. I have to admit, I keep up with my income from writing and what I’ve spend at least montly, so it’s not such a chore at the end of the year.

No matter what the ease may be now, when I’m all done it does make me wonder why on earth I’m spending so much time writing. My income for all my efforts certainly doesn’t make up for how much I’ve spend on traveling and promotion.

So, you might ask, once you’ve had this proof why do you keep doing it?

As any writer will tell you, even the ones in similar shoes to mine, it’s not possible to quit. Writing is a powerful addiction.

I write two mystery series and if I didn’t keep writing, how would I find out what happened to my characters?

As any writer knows, traveling around to do promotion or going to conferences or conventions is not only fun, it’s a time to visit with other writers and meet readers. Writers lead fairly solitary lives while working.

(Me at last year’s PSWA Convention.)

Now, I have to share that I do have balance in my life because I have a big family, and there’s always something going on. We have lots of weddings, and of course the babies follow.

 I’m blessed to live fairly close to most of my family members so I do get to spend time with many of them.

Our three daughters in the middle, me and hubby on either end.

 Wow, I do digress–back to the income tax situation–who cares if I’m not making lots of money, I am doing what I like and have a full life.

Anyone else have any of these feelings?
Marilyn

Income Tax, Grrrr!

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I have always done my own income tax, even in the days before there were tax programs that did all the mathematics.

A confession here, I am no good at arithmetic. My adding skills are lousy–even using a calculator. Despite all that I still did my own income tax. I was good at reading and understanding the instructions and often sent for the extra booklets and studied them. When something had to be added up I handed it to my husband, he has all the mathematical skills in our relationship.

I’ve never been audited, though I have received letters questioning me about things which I easily answered and cleared up without a problem.

Years ago when I was in the residential care business, when there was a question about a certain section in the tax law about people who took care of others and were paid, I was the lucky one chosen to go to the main Income Tax office and explain their own law to them. This resulted in my taxes being scrutinized and several phone calls from that office asking me questions about how I did this or that. A bit nerve-wracking, but they came over to our side.

Now for the first time I’m stymied and am going to have to see a professional tax person.

It has to do with a mutual fund we cashed in which lost more money for us than it earned. I have all the paperwork–though it took me forever to figure out exactly what it was–and now I don’t have a clue how to put the information into the tax program I have. I’ve tried, believe me I’ve tried, but I’m not doing something right.

I’m losing sleep over it, so I give up. Why on earth do “they” have to make everything so difficult?

So that’s my rant for this week. Hopefully, when next Tuesday rolls around I’ll have the problem solved.

Now back to your regular scheduled and much lighter programming.

Marilyn
http://fictionforyou.com