The Unpleasantness of Reality

[ladysprite]

For a few months now I've been basking in the simplicity, freedom, and delight of being self-employed, working as a relief vet. Unfortunately, now I've run head-on into the down side of this career choice, namely figuring out my own taxes.

Okay, I need to pay quarterly taxes - I can handle that. It shouldn't be too complicated; the Estimated Quarterly Tax form is only one page. Simple, yes? I'm fairly adept at arithmetic, I've kept careful records, and I'm giving myself almost two weeks to work on it.

Of course, each line of the form references a separate form that has to be filled out first in order to come up with the base numbers, each of which in turn references another two forms that have to be filled out, And in all of these forms and references, there are even more details that are never actually mentioned. Meanwhile, most of them don't even apply to me, since I have to fill out the same paperwork as people running corporations, but I need to fill them out in order to determine that I don't have to fill them out.

And then, when I finally give up and call the IRS, I'm told that I needed to do this back in April. Even though I only became self-employed in March, even though I filed a regular tax return in April, even though I wouldn't have had anything to pay beyond a few dollars. When confronted with this information, the tax guy on the phone just hemmed and hawed at me.

I've done as much of the paperwork as I can without my hubby's info, and I've come up with a reasonable number, and I've set aside the funds to pay it. I'm not sure whether I should be paying a quarter or a half, since I didn't make an April payment, but.... I'll figure that out. And then I'm hiring an accountant, or a tax preparer, or something, to rescue me next quarter. Because this has managed to reduce me to a whimpering pile of frustration like nothing else in the world, in record time.

Comments

[rufinia.livejournal.com]

It may be worth getting something like TurboTax for next time- Anna can sing it's praises better than I can. because I've only used their online version for my individual taxes last year. It was nice, though, because it would take you to the worksheets for the forms to figure out what the baseline number is for your one page form. And keep track of it all.

My dad, who is one of those people who (and no, I don't get this either) *enjoys* doing his taxes (the doing, not the paying), also loves TurboTax.

[matildalucet.livejournal.com]

I kind of enjoy doing taxes, though not enough to make a profession out of it. It's sort of a game to me. I've been told to be careful and proofread what TurboTax turns out, particularly on state stuff or anything funky in investments or other income. I decided to just spreadsheet ours last year.

I can't say I enjoyed reading the instructions that refer me to a publication that refer me to another publication. I think I would have just cried if the IRS hadn't put all those pubs on the web where I could just download them at 10pm when I felt like it.