I studied 'The Waste Land' for my English A level when I was seventeen. Had it even TOUCHED on taxes and personal finance I would have considered myself way better financially educated than I actually ever became - I didn't learn to budget until I was 46 years old, and Eliot could have saved me DECADES of trauma had he ACTUALLY written about taxes!!! 🤣
Haha! I wish the The Waste Land had actually taught some financial lessons. Or, maybe I just wish those lesson were taught somewhere during my teen years. That would’ve been great!
Yeah, I missed out entirely on that kind of life learning too, sadly! I'm happy to say that the first Covid lockdown gave me the time and headspace to finally educate myself on personal finance matters - YouTube and budgeting bloggers taught me a tonne! Shame I left it so long, but better late than never. 😊
For a while, we had a tax person do our taxes. Audited only once, and it was the IRS’ mistake. Then I figured I get the same headache whether I answer a tax person’s questions or do it myself, and so started an annual TurboTax addiction. Fortunately California has caught TT’s mistakes and returned more money to me. I do pay a bookkeeper a monthly fee just so I don’t have to deal with Quickbooks or balance business accounts myself. This year taxes were easier by ditching TT for FreeTaxUSA or whatever the IRS recommended. Maybe I should ask our governor to have California do our state returns, since they already know, too?
I did nothing! What could I do? I literally had no idea. Judy wasn't a client or a friend, and I couldn't think of anything else. And in the future, I never heard from Judy and nobody I worked with ever mentioned a Judy. Maybe Friday Jen already had too much wine when she wrote the note? From that point on I added more details to my notes because Dementia Jen is scary.
The added details seem like a good strategy. But I'm still hoping that one day Judy comes out of the word work and says, "Why didn't any of these Jens call me?" If she does, please let me know so we can close the loop on this note!
That's correct! There's an automatic extension for Californians because of this year's flooding, and I think some other states are automatically extended too for different reasons. But I'm just happy to have them over with for this year.
The notes I don't understand were usually punchlines I'd written down and couldn't remember the setup. Outsourced tax stuff is still agonizing. And it has the additional agony of having to pay for it in addition to whatever the government wants. BTW, I looked online and the $600 is only for certain kinds of 1099 forms. Some types are issued for any amount. https://blog.tax1099.com/1099-reporting-requirements/ I'm waiting for some politician to run on a platform of a flat 10% tax. "Tithing -- If it's good enough for God, It's good enough for the government."
That platform would be pretty popular. There's always a flat tax candidate in the primaries, but I'm kinda surprised we haven't seen one of them link it to tithing. That's a messaging strategy that could work.
1. Forget the notes, I can’t read my handwriting. I have an essential tremor in my right hand. It truly sucks when I put on makeup. Glad I have a steady left hand. I should have been a doctor. I’d write unreadable prescriptions with the best of them.
2. We outsource but it’s still agony.
3. Passover and my sister’s and kids’ birthday. April is otherwise glorious.
4. I first wrote 44. This is what happens when I text with ET. There needs to be more Rom Coms with a sexy scene of a couple doing their taxes. Together they have a big deduction.
Honestly, I'm surprised we haven't seen a rom com about two people getting married for tax reasons, then getting audited, then falling in love for real. It's silly, but given the way our tax code generally favors marriage, I'm sure there are couples that might've gone either way on marriage, but then looked at their taxes and figured, why not? So yeah, there really needs to be a tax-driven rom com.
As long as nobody from the IRS is reading this, my method is to start looking for 1099s and my lonely W2 in February. I also buy TurboTax as soon as I find it on sale which Intuit has figured out, so they have small sales earlier and earlier each year. As soon as I can, I do the first pass with whatever paperwork I have on hand. This number usually shocks me and sends me into the pit of anxiety. Then in early April (which I define as the night of the 14th), I scramble around to enter the late paperwork and file. In the old days, I’d mail a check, safe in the knowledge that it would take weeks for it to get back to my bank. Nowadays, they just grab the money immediately out of my account which always hurts.
Obviously, my goal is to owe just enough that there isn’t a penalty so that I can keep MY money as long as possible. I never want a refund because that means I gave them too much during the year.
Don’t forget, the IRS is only doing what Congress and the President tells them to do in the least efficient manner possible. Vote the bastards out!
Lol fucking taxes. Better Than Ezra. Snort. I pay a team to do it, which means I just cut out the foreplay. Thankfully they give me a heads up, encrypted email, so I can lube up prior to. Why can’t we make it easier on us!? Why do we need a billion dollar industry between us and them? But April is the entrance to spring and summer, so, I heal quickly.
Usually, I don't think much of spring because our winters are so mild in LA. But this winter was rough and so I'm really loving spring. No more rain. No more cloudy days. No more cold days (50 is cold for us, but I'm over it). Bring on summer!
I'd rather not try a winter in the NW. I mean, I'll visit in the winter, but I don't want to live through another winter. I spent seven winters in Connecticut and New York for college and law school. That was enough for this Californian.
"There are lots of ways to estimate your quarterly revenue as a freelance writer, but some of my favorites include: wishful thinking..." Ha ha ha ! That would be me!
Sharron, I just want to say thank you for going the extra mile and reading the footnotes! Not everyone does, but those who do get little easter egg jokes. Glad this one made you LOL.
I feel you on honesty and taxes. I once told the truth about a car lease to our accountant and he was like, “maybe you guys want to talk it over privately and give me that answer again??” But I just kept telling the truth and we ended up paying a much bigger tax bill.
1. The real reason I want to get famous is so that when I die and people go through all my stuff, they'll discover all the insane crap I wrote to myself over the years. Though I do wonder if they'd find me as charming and hilarious as I find myself in those musings. Probably not. Self-notes inevitably become inside jokes. With a very select audience. Of one. 😂
2. I used to work for myself as a personal chef and those tax years were brutal. Mainly because I'm too effing honest about everything. And I make (complex) systems. But the last two years I made approximately $0 as a writer, so my taxes have pretty much returned themselves! Easy peasy queasy. 🫠
3. April in New Hampshire is a crap shoot. Two days ago, it was sunny and 85 degrees outside. This week it will be dreary and in the 50s. April is unreliable.
4. Not answering the question so much here and showing my appreciation for your rewrite of The Waste Land's opening lines. And you didn't even need ChatFaceBot to help you write it. Human brains unite!
You can say ANYTHING on Substack! And I'm a big fan of profanity, so your mom is very cool in my book. I always heard it as "piss or get off the pot!" but the sentiment is the same. 😂
It’s a good stretch. Here are two more. It took George Carlin about 20 years of standup to pay off a big tax debt from his cocaine days. Also, Wesley Snipes post-prison was making films to pay the tax man.
I have read many of DFWs essays but i have never read his novels. its interesting....Known more about Form 1099 here: https://www.form1099online.com/
lol just an example
im a red sox fan !!! (big time 😅)
reading entrails and vision quests to determine quarterly tax payments has been around for centurys
and hypnosis im guessing CAN be written off
as a business expense but really just another perk if it can convince an April fan base like say the Arizona Diamondbacks
they have a legitimate shot at a wild card
and i dont give a damn if there are
12 in each conference
It’ll take every ounce of magical thinking we can muster to convince the fans that the Diamondbacks have a chance.
I studied 'The Waste Land' for my English A level when I was seventeen. Had it even TOUCHED on taxes and personal finance I would have considered myself way better financially educated than I actually ever became - I didn't learn to budget until I was 46 years old, and Eliot could have saved me DECADES of trauma had he ACTUALLY written about taxes!!! 🤣
Haha! I wish the The Waste Land had actually taught some financial lessons. Or, maybe I just wish those lesson were taught somewhere during my teen years. That would’ve been great!
Yeah, I missed out entirely on that kind of life learning too, sadly! I'm happy to say that the first Covid lockdown gave me the time and headspace to finally educate myself on personal finance matters - YouTube and budgeting bloggers taught me a tonne! Shame I left it so long, but better late than never. 😊
Way to find a silver lining, though!
For a while, we had a tax person do our taxes. Audited only once, and it was the IRS’ mistake. Then I figured I get the same headache whether I answer a tax person’s questions or do it myself, and so started an annual TurboTax addiction. Fortunately California has caught TT’s mistakes and returned more money to me. I do pay a bookkeeper a monthly fee just so I don’t have to deal with Quickbooks or balance business accounts myself. This year taxes were easier by ditching TT for FreeTaxUSA or whatever the IRS recommended. Maybe I should ask our governor to have California do our state returns, since they already know, too?
It must've felt gratifying for an audit to reveal that it was the IRS that made the mistake. Did you celebrate, or just move on with your life?
I cashed that check so fast, I scared the zeroes.
YES!
Friday Jen once left a note for Monday Jen to “call Judy,” only Monday Jen didn’t know who Judy was or why to call her. 🤦♀️
What did Monday Jen do?
I did nothing! What could I do? I literally had no idea. Judy wasn't a client or a friend, and I couldn't think of anything else. And in the future, I never heard from Judy and nobody I worked with ever mentioned a Judy. Maybe Friday Jen already had too much wine when she wrote the note? From that point on I added more details to my notes because Dementia Jen is scary.
The added details seem like a good strategy. But I'm still hoping that one day Judy comes out of the word work and says, "Why didn't any of these Jens call me?" If she does, please let me know so we can close the loop on this note!
I believe tax returns are not due this year until October. They extended it this year. (I did mine 6 weeks ago.)
That's correct! There's an automatic extension for Californians because of this year's flooding, and I think some other states are automatically extended too for different reasons. But I'm just happy to have them over with for this year.
The notes I don't understand were usually punchlines I'd written down and couldn't remember the setup. Outsourced tax stuff is still agonizing. And it has the additional agony of having to pay for it in addition to whatever the government wants. BTW, I looked online and the $600 is only for certain kinds of 1099 forms. Some types are issued for any amount. https://blog.tax1099.com/1099-reporting-requirements/ I'm waiting for some politician to run on a platform of a flat 10% tax. "Tithing -- If it's good enough for God, It's good enough for the government."
That platform would be pretty popular. There's always a flat tax candidate in the primaries, but I'm kinda surprised we haven't seen one of them link it to tithing. That's a messaging strategy that could work.
1. Forget the notes, I can’t read my handwriting. I have an essential tremor in my right hand. It truly sucks when I put on makeup. Glad I have a steady left hand. I should have been a doctor. I’d write unreadable prescriptions with the best of them.
2. We outsource but it’s still agony.
3. Passover and my sister’s and kids’ birthday. April is otherwise glorious.
4. I first wrote 44. This is what happens when I text with ET. There needs to be more Rom Coms with a sexy scene of a couple doing their taxes. Together they have a big deduction.
Honestly, I'm surprised we haven't seen a rom com about two people getting married for tax reasons, then getting audited, then falling in love for real. It's silly, but given the way our tax code generally favors marriage, I'm sure there are couples that might've gone either way on marriage, but then looked at their taxes and figured, why not? So yeah, there really needs to be a tax-driven rom com.
"Green Card" meets "The Proposal" but with taxes. And a creepy IRS guy is the antagonist.
Yes!
As long as nobody from the IRS is reading this, my method is to start looking for 1099s and my lonely W2 in February. I also buy TurboTax as soon as I find it on sale which Intuit has figured out, so they have small sales earlier and earlier each year. As soon as I can, I do the first pass with whatever paperwork I have on hand. This number usually shocks me and sends me into the pit of anxiety. Then in early April (which I define as the night of the 14th), I scramble around to enter the late paperwork and file. In the old days, I’d mail a check, safe in the knowledge that it would take weeks for it to get back to my bank. Nowadays, they just grab the money immediately out of my account which always hurts.
Obviously, my goal is to owe just enough that there isn’t a penalty so that I can keep MY money as long as possible. I never want a refund because that means I gave them too much during the year.
Don’t forget, the IRS is only doing what Congress and the President tells them to do in the least efficient manner possible. Vote the bastards out!
Good reminder re: Congress and the President. Taxes, and especially tax administration, is a mess of our own making.
Lol fucking taxes. Better Than Ezra. Snort. I pay a team to do it, which means I just cut out the foreplay. Thankfully they give me a heads up, encrypted email, so I can lube up prior to. Why can’t we make it easier on us!? Why do we need a billion dollar industry between us and them? But April is the entrance to spring and summer, so, I heal quickly.
Usually, I don't think much of spring because our winters are so mild in LA. But this winter was rough and so I'm really loving spring. No more rain. No more cloudy days. No more cold days (50 is cold for us, but I'm over it). Bring on summer!
April isn’t over. Don’t jinx it!
Good point! I'll make the appropriate sacrifices to the weather gods today. We should be ok.
Damn! More rain, more cold & wet on the way to NorCal, plus
" 'Winter strikes again': Snow returns to Tahoe forecast" https://www.sfgate.com/weather/
Bring on summer! Try a winter in the NW.
I'd rather not try a winter in the NW. I mean, I'll visit in the winter, but I don't want to live through another winter. I spent seven winters in Connecticut and New York for college and law school. That was enough for this Californian.
"There are lots of ways to estimate your quarterly revenue as a freelance writer, but some of my favorites include: wishful thinking..." Ha ha ha ! That would be me!
Sharron, I just want to say thank you for going the extra mile and reading the footnotes! Not everyone does, but those who do get little easter egg jokes. Glad this one made you LOL.
I read every Estrin word. Never know where you will find inspiration.
❤️
I feel you on honesty and taxes. I once told the truth about a car lease to our accountant and he was like, “maybe you guys want to talk it over privately and give me that answer again??” But I just kept telling the truth and we ended up paying a much bigger tax bill.
Tax season used to be agony, but now we have a professional we trust and I save all year in a special account to pay them.
“Taxman” by The Beatles comes to mind, though it definitely has a “rich guy complaining” vibe to it.
I still like Taxman though, but it’s hard to square the vibe with Lennon’s Working Class Hero.
1. The real reason I want to get famous is so that when I die and people go through all my stuff, they'll discover all the insane crap I wrote to myself over the years. Though I do wonder if they'd find me as charming and hilarious as I find myself in those musings. Probably not. Self-notes inevitably become inside jokes. With a very select audience. Of one. 😂
2. I used to work for myself as a personal chef and those tax years were brutal. Mainly because I'm too effing honest about everything. And I make (complex) systems. But the last two years I made approximately $0 as a writer, so my taxes have pretty much returned themselves! Easy peasy queasy. 🫠
3. April in New Hampshire is a crap shoot. Two days ago, it was sunny and 85 degrees outside. This week it will be dreary and in the 50s. April is unreliable.
4. Not answering the question so much here and showing my appreciation for your rewrite of The Waste Land's opening lines. And you didn't even need ChatFaceBot to help you write it. Human brains unite!
Down with ChatFaceBot! As my old mom would say, "Shit or get off the pot!"
( Can I say that on Substack?)
You can say all kinds of shit on my Substack.
oh, goody.
You can say ANYTHING on Substack! And I'm a big fan of profanity, so your mom is very cool in my book. I always heard it as "piss or get off the pot!" but the sentiment is the same. 😂
Good to know. Thanks
May be stretching a bit, but one could argue Exile in Main St album was inspired by taxes (and other things).
you may want to add " tumbling dice"
to that album
It’s a good stretch. Here are two more. It took George Carlin about 20 years of standup to pay off a big tax debt from his cocaine days. Also, Wesley Snipes post-prison was making films to pay the tax man.