Finally Did My Taxes
So you know how I wrote that I was going to do my taxes a few days ago?
Well, I kept putting it off. I knew I was going to owe something... I just didn't want to face how much I would owe.
The bad news is that it turns out I owe $1234. I probably could have gotten that number down a little bit by taking more deductions but at this point I just want to put last year behind me and start fresh with this year, being really careful about recording anything I can deduct legally as a self-employed person.
What really sucks is that since I live in a studio, I can't take a home office deduction. Well, I guess I could cut off a corner of my room from the rest of my apartment and not go into it unless I'm doing work, but that would be rather silly. Or at least I think it would be silly - a tax professional might think otherwise?
Regardless, I knew I was going to owe a lot this year because I had a decent amount of freelance income last year that hadn't been taxed at all.
This year I'll owe much, much more since I'm sans the W2 life, but at least now I'm trying to be careful figuring out what I owe out of everything I make. It's better to tally it up that way. With last year's taxes, I've been entirely in the dark.
So I used H&R Block's TaxCut online software. The basic version. I went through the whole nine yards w/ TurboTax and then decided to check out what I'd owe with TaxCut and since it was pretty much the same in the end I just filed w/ TaxCut. My login session for TurboTax had already signed out and, well, I forgot my login name.
I just wish there was a way to find out if a CPA could really get me more deductions... but it seems unlikely. I mean, how many deductions are there that are so hidden only those training in tax legalize can understand how to save money?
1 comments:
You should totally take the home office deduction at the very least. It's bit iffy with a studio, but if you have a workspace you can probably get away with it. I've read that the IRS says "no" about home office deductions for studios. But on the other hand I know someone that got audited and had claimed home office for a studio and had no problem with it. The savings can be pretty massive. Technically the home office has to be for "work only" but it would be hard for the IRS to prove otherwise. If you are working for yourself mostly, there are lots of business deductions you can probably take (anything bought for research purposes, driving places, etc).
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