Death and Taxes
No death, that I know of recently...other than the copious amounts of theatrical blood spilt onstage in MacB.
But taxes are done! Three states, two moves, a wedding, and a pile of 1099s and misc forms...we opted to pay someone else to do them for us. An hour and a half later we left the accountant's office a little disappointed in the news on the refund vs. taxes due front, but thoroughly pleased with the stress free process.
The accountant we found was a recommendation by the overhire who assisted me on MacBeth. Her income is primarily from freelance work while her husband is full time at another theatre. They reflect the same sort of balance of w-2 and 1099s that I have had in the past. Granted this year the potential of freelancing (and thus dealing with 1099s and self employment taxes) is limited for me this coming year. But for the previous tax year I still had a few, and sitting down with an accountant would be educational on that front.
The company caters to the arts community. A lot of folk our age. A lot of self employed. And the space itself felt welcoming.
In the end we broke about even...owning federal and WI, getting returns from HI and MN.
The move from HI, unfortunately did not qualify for any deductions, due to the length of time we remained in WI. That was a little crushing as that move was by far the more expensive...all the receipts totaled from the post office alone was more than the U-haul, gas and one night's hotel stay from the second move. Factor in airfare, two nights in a hotel, another rental car and the hefty UPS shipment of Ross' computer and my sewing machine...all in all about $1900 in expenses, none of it deductible. Still, we have not one regret about moving. We've probably saved that much already in groceries and rent alone.
So what did we learn from this past tax year?
If I have a side job that qualifies me for self-employment..track everything that can be deducted...and almost everything can:
mileage, transit tickets, coffee from meetings, portions of my cell phone, internet and cable bills, book purchases, admissions to movies, shows and museums, meals while on the road for work (and essentially any meal I have to purchase because the job in question keeps me from cooking in my own kitchen), computer and other supply purchases (including all art supplies I'd use for renderings), fedex/kinko's charges....
It's a hefty list. But so long as I am vigilante in documenting the expenses, and they are justifiable as a supply or research expense, I can claim it. That certainly makes even the piddly little $200-300 jobs much more worth while. Financially at least. After the last show I tried to work on, I will be far more selective in the types of projects I agree to take on and the quality of the people I will be working with.
What else did we learn?
If you're planning a big move, plan to stick around in the new city for a while.
Joint vs Separate...didn't really seem to matter in our case. I probably would have gotten more back, Ross probably would have owed more. In the end it balanced out about the same.
Pulling out of a 401k...time carefully. Because Ross did this while we were in WI...it went on the WI tax return. Which is probably why we owed there. As these three months contained our lowest earnings (and thus lowest with holdings) that chunk of change made a huge difference. In a perfect world, don't pull out money early at all. Of course when you need the money now...
Don't screw around much with with holdings on the w-4. And if you do, remember to change it back to a higher with holding. Ross took an exemption in HI which meant a larger paycheck at the time, and prior to the move that really did come in handy. But because we failed to change it back after a month or so, no federal tax ended up being paid by him through the job at Alamo. Four months without federal with holdings, coupled with a large untaxed design fee from my freelance gig is probably the major player in our owing.
The fewer states the better. They all have different regulations regarding part-year residency, they all want some of your money no matter how little you worked there, and they do not talk well to each other. I remember the year I had to file in MA was particularly stressful because of the state's health insurance requirements...something that as a graduate-student-in-the-arts-just-working-at-a-low-paying-summer-theatre-that-didn't-offer-any-benefits I did not possess. A good theory, but in practice financially trying when no affordable health plans are available to self-employed persons.
And WI just seemed cranking that they did not want us to stay in their beautiful state. We were sort of surprised on the non-resident questionable that they did not ask of our football allegiances or feelings on Farve.
Oh, next year will be so much easier...
But taxes are done! Three states, two moves, a wedding, and a pile of 1099s and misc forms...we opted to pay someone else to do them for us. An hour and a half later we left the accountant's office a little disappointed in the news on the refund vs. taxes due front, but thoroughly pleased with the stress free process.
The accountant we found was a recommendation by the overhire who assisted me on MacBeth. Her income is primarily from freelance work while her husband is full time at another theatre. They reflect the same sort of balance of w-2 and 1099s that I have had in the past. Granted this year the potential of freelancing (and thus dealing with 1099s and self employment taxes) is limited for me this coming year. But for the previous tax year I still had a few, and sitting down with an accountant would be educational on that front.
The company caters to the arts community. A lot of folk our age. A lot of self employed. And the space itself felt welcoming.
In the end we broke about even...owning federal and WI, getting returns from HI and MN.
The move from HI, unfortunately did not qualify for any deductions, due to the length of time we remained in WI. That was a little crushing as that move was by far the more expensive...all the receipts totaled from the post office alone was more than the U-haul, gas and one night's hotel stay from the second move. Factor in airfare, two nights in a hotel, another rental car and the hefty UPS shipment of Ross' computer and my sewing machine...all in all about $1900 in expenses, none of it deductible. Still, we have not one regret about moving. We've probably saved that much already in groceries and rent alone.
So what did we learn from this past tax year?
If I have a side job that qualifies me for self-employment..track everything that can be deducted...and almost everything can:
mileage, transit tickets, coffee from meetings, portions of my cell phone, internet and cable bills, book purchases, admissions to movies, shows and museums, meals while on the road for work (and essentially any meal I have to purchase because the job in question keeps me from cooking in my own kitchen), computer and other supply purchases (including all art supplies I'd use for renderings), fedex/kinko's charges....
It's a hefty list. But so long as I am vigilante in documenting the expenses, and they are justifiable as a supply or research expense, I can claim it. That certainly makes even the piddly little $200-300 jobs much more worth while. Financially at least. After the last show I tried to work on, I will be far more selective in the types of projects I agree to take on and the quality of the people I will be working with.
What else did we learn?
If you're planning a big move, plan to stick around in the new city for a while.
Joint vs Separate...didn't really seem to matter in our case. I probably would have gotten more back, Ross probably would have owed more. In the end it balanced out about the same.
Pulling out of a 401k...time carefully. Because Ross did this while we were in WI...it went on the WI tax return. Which is probably why we owed there. As these three months contained our lowest earnings (and thus lowest with holdings) that chunk of change made a huge difference. In a perfect world, don't pull out money early at all. Of course when you need the money now...
Don't screw around much with with holdings on the w-4. And if you do, remember to change it back to a higher with holding. Ross took an exemption in HI which meant a larger paycheck at the time, and prior to the move that really did come in handy. But because we failed to change it back after a month or so, no federal tax ended up being paid by him through the job at Alamo. Four months without federal with holdings, coupled with a large untaxed design fee from my freelance gig is probably the major player in our owing.
The fewer states the better. They all have different regulations regarding part-year residency, they all want some of your money no matter how little you worked there, and they do not talk well to each other. I remember the year I had to file in MA was particularly stressful because of the state's health insurance requirements...something that as a graduate-student-in-the-arts-just-working-at-a-low-paying-summer-theatre-that-didn't-offer-any-benefits I did not possess. A good theory, but in practice financially trying when no affordable health plans are available to self-employed persons.
And WI just seemed cranking that they did not want us to stay in their beautiful state. We were sort of surprised on the non-resident questionable that they did not ask of our football allegiances or feelings on Farve.
Oh, next year will be so much easier...
posted by Unknown at
7:31 AM
1 Comments:
Wow, I am definitely going to start saving more of my receipts...if I can claim theatre tickets on my taxes because I'm getting "paid" to review them...I might actually break even!
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home