I Worked Out Today!

[lydamorehouse]

Yay!

Plus, I wrote a bit last night. So life is back on an even keel.

On Saturday, we go to our tax guy. It's going to be a painful trip. Even though I've been paying estimated taxes quarterly, we deeply underestimated how much I'd make. I made WAY too much money writing this year. Actually, an astounding amount. My income was larger than my partner's, who works full-time in a professional job at the Minnesota Historical Society.

I'm officially a full-time writer now.

Next year, I won't be. That's the writing life right there in a nutshell. If only I could count on an income this large every year (and at a steady pace.)

My other big writing related trauma is that I have no idea when my deadline for Tate's latest is. I thought it was due at the end of May, but having looked over stuff from last year, I'm starting to freak out that it might be the beginning of May. Hmmmmmm, must go e-mail my agent. And write like a fiend.

Comments

[mindyklasky.livejournal.com]

Congrats and sympathies :-)

I, too, had a strong year this year - paying estimateds *just* saved us from slipping into the next tax bracket (by a narrow margin of $700!)

I am just poking along, starting a new book in a new series. I've known that it was due on June 30, but that's still a *long* way away, right?

Except that it's due on June 1, something I discovered as I was checking my calendar before scheduling a Memorial Day vacation.

Whoops.

Good luck!

[notthatedburke.livejournal.com]

How does paying estimated tax keep you from moving up a tax bracket? Your bracket's determined by how much money you make, not how much money you pay in taxes before the end of the year.

[mindyklasky.livejournal.com]

Of course, you're totally, completely right. In my own little tax-adverse brain, I was conflating needing to pay money (because we hadn't pre-paid via estimateds) with needing to pay money (because we moved up a tax bracket.) Both mean writing a check, but for different reasons.

self-employment blues

[(Anonymous)]

Ask your accountant about income-averaging; sometimes it helps to keep Fed & State taxes reasonable if you can average a slow previous year with a good current one. (Though come to think of it I used this trick last when I went to grad school, so it may no longer be legal...) You'll still get bit in the butt by Social Security self-employment taxes...

Frank

Re: self-employment blues

[(Anonymous)]

whups, I just googled and discovered that averaging had been repealed by the Tax Act of 1986. Sorry. I woulda' used it for tax year '85...