Busy, busy day. Happy Birthday to me!
Today has been a very weird day, because it is Sunday and my birthday, but I had to work all day--and I mean I got home after 10 p.m. But I got a free gourmet dinner with wine and tasty cake and had...um...30 people singing happy birthday to me when I had a piece of cake with a candle in it delivered.
It was the first day of the big Bush Foundation orientation for the new fellows, which I got to sit in on (and help with the wrangling and the tidying and the arranging, of course) and take photographs for. This was fantastic, as not only did I get to meet a bunch of people whose creative talents and collective wisdom I stand in awe of, but I learned things that will be highly useful to my writing/photography career(s), which I would usually have to pay large sums of money to learn (seminars, tax consultants, workshops, etc.).
Useful tax knowledge gained (applies to Schedule C):
* All of the monthly internet fee is tax-deductible, even if you do other stuff online
* As long as your only office for the Schedule C profession is at home and it is mostly populated by the related things, you can claim it as being solely for work, despite using it occasionally for other things (see the first *)
* If you're filing multiple Schedule Cs, you can put your major equipment amortizations and your home office deduction on 1 schedule, instead of trying to spread it out appropriately
* I can deduct every bloody fiction book I buy with no problem. (I've heard elsewhere that one should only deduct non-fiction research books, but this canny tax lady trumps those sources.)
* I should set up a Roth IRA
* I should get one of those HM(A?) accounts with the swipable card that you just use to pay anything medical
* Really, a tax accountant might be a very good idea. Especially this one, who specializes in creative tax accounting. She's sneaky. And good at all sorts of creative people's taxes (Fox Tax, LLC).
Tax knowledge anybody who graduated recently should know: if you're filing a Schedule C (artists, writers, performers, etc.), and you went to school for this, you can deduct your actual tuition. I think she said you can retroactively correct a tax filing for fifteen years (or it's valid for fifteen, or something)--which means get thee to a tax lawyer if you're doing creative contractor-y/on your own type stuff in a field you went to school for.
And I practiced forms in the little sunken cement plaza on Nicollet & 5th while waiting for the bus home. Y'know, sometimes it's nice to just feel cool. Even if nobody's watching.
Make that especially if nobody's watching.
It was the first day of the big Bush Foundation orientation for the new fellows, which I got to sit in on (and help with the wrangling and the tidying and the arranging, of course) and take photographs for. This was fantastic, as not only did I get to meet a bunch of people whose creative talents and collective wisdom I stand in awe of, but I learned things that will be highly useful to my writing/photography career(s), which I would usually have to pay large sums of money to learn (seminars, tax consultants, workshops, etc.).
Useful tax knowledge gained (applies to Schedule C):
* All of the monthly internet fee is tax-deductible, even if you do other stuff online
* As long as your only office for the Schedule C profession is at home and it is mostly populated by the related things, you can claim it as being solely for work, despite using it occasionally for other things (see the first *)
* If you're filing multiple Schedule Cs, you can put your major equipment amortizations and your home office deduction on 1 schedule, instead of trying to spread it out appropriately
* I can deduct every bloody fiction book I buy with no problem. (I've heard elsewhere that one should only deduct non-fiction research books, but this canny tax lady trumps those sources.)
* I should set up a Roth IRA
* I should get one of those HM(A?) accounts with the swipable card that you just use to pay anything medical
* Really, a tax accountant might be a very good idea. Especially this one, who specializes in creative tax accounting. She's sneaky. And good at all sorts of creative people's taxes (Fox Tax, LLC).
Tax knowledge anybody who graduated recently should know: if you're filing a Schedule C (artists, writers, performers, etc.), and you went to school for this, you can deduct your actual tuition. I think she said you can retroactively correct a tax filing for fifteen years (or it's valid for fifteen, or something)--which means get thee to a tax lawyer if you're doing creative contractor-y/on your own type stuff in a field you went to school for.
And I practiced forms in the little sunken cement plaza on Nicollet & 5th while waiting for the bus home. Y'know, sometimes it's nice to just feel cool. Even if nobody's watching.
Make that especially if nobody's watching.