Last night I stayed up until 2 am talking with Nancy and Raisinfish. It was one of those marvelous conversations where time is irrelevant. I remember looking at my watch at 9:30. The next time I looked it was after midnight, but I was enjoying the conversation too much to mention the late hour. Then it was 2 am. I do not at all regret that conversation. Opportunities like that are all too rare.
Today I put aside convention thoughts, and writing thoughts, and Schlock book thoughts. I had to bury myself in state and federal tax forms. I had the usual batch of quarterly reports with attending forms and checks. Then I had the annual reports with attending forms and checks. This was all further complicated because we passed an income threshold last year which changed some of the rules. I now have a monthly report and check to do. It took a trip down to the local IRS office to get that set up properly. Being an employer is really complicated even if you only have one employee. But the reports are done and everything is in the mail. Now I just have to do the regular weekly accounting and assemble all the paperwork so that we can actually file our taxes and hopefully get a refund. That appointment is Friday. Whee.
Conversations like that are cool, and rare, like you say, so should indeed be enjoyed, and to hell with having to get up in the morning… There’s always coffee 🙂
I know what you mean about tax and thresholds. Hitherto my business has been below the UK threshold for turnover at £15000 pa which means you can fill in a really simple tax declaration, basically it has 3 figures: turnover, allowable expenses, net profit-or-loss. OK, it’s not quite that simple as you need to have figures to justify the ones you put on the form, in case they ask. This year, I went over the £15K turnover, and had to fill in all the rest of the form.
of course, over here we’re all unpaid taxmen – you fill up your own forms and calculate your own tax, in my case, online. I then print out the form once it’s done and it gets submitted automatically. I think if you’re organised enough, you can just submit the data and have them calculate it, but that means being much more on the ball than I ever am; mine’s usually filed about a week before the final deadline after which you get fined.
Conversations like that are cool, and rare, like you say, so should indeed be enjoyed, and to hell with having to get up in the morning… There’s always coffee 🙂
I know what you mean about tax and thresholds. Hitherto my business has been below the UK threshold for turnover at £15000 pa which means you can fill in a really simple tax declaration, basically it has 3 figures: turnover, allowable expenses, net profit-or-loss. OK, it’s not quite that simple as you need to have figures to justify the ones you put on the form, in case they ask. This year, I went over the £15K turnover, and had to fill in all the rest of the form.
of course, over here we’re all unpaid taxmen – you fill up your own forms and calculate your own tax, in my case, online. I then print out the form once it’s done and it gets submitted automatically. I think if you’re organised enough, you can just submit the data and have them calculate it, but that means being much more on the ball than I ever am; mine’s usually filed about a week before the final deadline after which you get fined.