Tax man, Mr. Wilson

We send our taxes to a preparer because, what with Noel being self-employed as a freelancer by multiple outlets, it's not a simple matter of a couple of W-2s and ample withholding.  If we've got our act together, our information goes off to the preparer in early March, and we get back our returns to sign and file in about a month.

And that's when we find out how well we balanced our income and deductions the previous year.  It's possible as a freelancer to make too much money and to spend too little on your business.  If you do, not only do you owe a lot of income tax (there being no employer to do your withholding and match your Social Security contributions), you end up paying higher estimated taxes throughout the following year.

So it was with great joy that we discovered, upon opening our completed returns this year, that we had overpaid on estimated tax all year long and therefore had gotten way ahead for the coming year.  Not only did we not owe any tax with our returns, but our estimated payments for 2011 were already paid with the overage from 2010, at least until the final installment.

I can't remember the last time I submitted tax forms ahead of time.  Usually I wait until Tax Day to keep from having that big check hit the account as long as possible.  But with nothing owed, we signed and sent everything off within a couple of days of getting the return.  April 15 is the day after the Bear Hug for the Nature Reserve this year, a day of celebration, not a day when we owe the government.  We're paid up.

Next year will be different; it always is.  But for this year, we are thinking of our vacation from estimated tax payments as the closest thing we ever get to a refund.

Hard at workst

I guard my leisure time jealously. Evenings and weekends, ideally, are for knitting, reading, and catching up on TV and movies. Work often intrudes, of course; I write about TV a couple of times a week, and frequently student work has to be graded. But I don't regard those occasions as business as usual. I resent them, and breathe a sigh of relief when I can contemplate a couple of hours with nothing obligatory on the schedule.

But I also work hard to make sure those couple of hours don't get eaten away bit by bit. Sure, I could still get in some stitching if I were also taking care of other minor chores. But I want the whole enchilada, not just twenty stolen minutes.

So even though I could get our tax records ready for the preparer in a few half-hour chunks spread out over several days, I took a different tack. The two hours this afternoon during the kids' quiet time that I would normally spend on knitting and internet while clearing a couple of items off the TiVo, I instead spent organizing the 1099's and separating 2010 receipts from 2009 stuff. By the time Archer came out to fire up the Wii for his afternoon playtime, I was halfway done with the job. Sometime before the end of the month I'll need to add up all the deductions and job-related expenses, but the hardest work of gathering all the material and entering the big numbers is over.

This may be the earliest I've ever tackled the taxes. And it's all thanks to the Winter Olympics, starting next Friday, and my aversion to sharing my weekend time with work. I know I'm not going to want to buckle down and start the massive job of tax prep when I want to be gorging on curling and starting the last pattern repeat of my Totally Autumn throw. Only a desire for total purity in my off-the-clock activities could lead me to devote much of a Sunday to non-deadline-related work. Now I can settle in for next Friday's opening ceremonies with a clear conscience. If only I didn't have to spend Saturday morning on campus for a half-day event -- or if only I could go ahead and get it out of the way on my own time.

Organizational frenzy

Today's post about everything in its mysterious, number place is at Toxophily.

And speaking of organization, this is the weekend I have set aside for filling out the booklet for the tax preparer. Next weekend I'm going to be occupied with the ICTE, and my goal is always to mail the materials off before the end of February.

Naturally I left it until Sunday evening. But my goal really isn't to be done with it tonight -- in actuality, that's impossible, since Noel's primary employer hasn't sent him a 1099-MISC yet. (Um, guys? Deadline was Jan. 31.) Really, I just want to see what I have to go hunting for. Which brokerage account will I have to dig up online access codes for to download dividend statements? Should be a good scavenger hunt for the next couple of weeks!

Stimulating

The government in its infinite wisdom is going to give us $1800 in a couple of weeks. Since we're right in the middle class sweet spot and have two kids, we qualify for the maximum payout.

Last time the Bush administration sent us a check because the country was falling into recession (in 2001 if memory serves), we were incensed at the whole "spend a buck, save America" rhetoric. We gave the whole amount to our church.

But this year, even though I'm still just as cranky about the idea that consumerism is the golden-brick road to our national economic Emerald City, it's less appealing to sign over that check to charity. Noel had a successful year on the freelance front, and freelancers don't have the luxury of having income and Social Security tax withheld from their income -- plus they have to pay both the employer and employee shares. So our liquidity, shall we say, is a bit on the low side after April 15.

$1800 isn't a lot of money. I feel a bit soiled for even treating it with enough significance to think about what we would do with it. More than half of the potential recipients this year plan to save it or pay bills and debts with it -- not exactly the injection of cash into the economy that we were sold on. I imagine that if we don't end up giving the money away, it will almost make up one of our estimated tax payments for 2008. In other words, our choices are to give it away or give it back.

What will you do with your check -- and how do you feel about it?