Freelance Tax Annoyances
Filed Under: Uncategorized
I’m paranoid about taxes. I’m constantly afraid that I’m going to end up magically owing twice what I think I owe to the point where I save nearly every penny in anticipation of the tax bill. Freelancer taxes are really screwed up, you see. Sure, we get to deduct a lot of things like home office space, but we end up paying double the social security/medicare taxes that the employed pay, because the employer pays half of that usually. And then there’s the state income taxes, and the federal income taxes, which are normal, except we don’t have the luxury of having them withheld for us.
I was not set up this year to pay estimated taxes because I had not intended when I started out to be freelancing for the entire year. I spent half the year looking for a job before finally giving up on that and settling into being a full time freelance designer. I’ve done alright for myself in those last 6 months. But I’m looking at my savings and knowing that a considerable chunk of it is owed in taxes. How much exactly is what I would like to know. I don’t even begin to understand how the tax system truly works.
That’s all a long way of getting around to saying, I file early every year. As soon as I have the paperwork. I almost never fail to have my taxes done by the second week of February. This year, I’m not sure what to do, because of a bunch of 1099 forms from my clients are slow to arrive. Several have not even been sent yet, despite the fact that the government requires that 1099s be mailed no later than January 31st. Now, I have very detailed records of my income thanks to using fantastic invoicing software. I don’t need the 1099s to know what I made. But I think the government expects me to send them in.
Any tax experts out there know what the requirements are regarding 1099s that are so damned slow in arriving? If I report the income myself, does it matter if I don’t send a 1099 that didn’t come in time?
Ugh. It’s enough to give me an ulcer. You know, it’s not like freelancers don’t have enough to worry about. The complete lack of income security is plenty!
Ahem
Filed Under: Site News
So in my last post, I said that it’s rare to let my blog go without an update for 3 weeks. Today’s the one month anniversary of that post. So I set a new record. Yay for me?
I guess when I gave up writing, I *really* gave up writing. I hadn’t intended to stop blogging, but here we are. I need a fresh start in blogging anyway. My interests have changed a bit, or at least the focus has.
So. Another filler post just to say that I am still here, and that I still think about you all. I miss your attention.
Remember that I’m posting a photo a day over here though, so if you want to keep up on at least one of my projects, there you go.
At this point, it’s clear I shouldn’t have set up a different blog to run the 365 project. Lesson learned.
Say, is that a Tumbleweed?
Filed Under: creativity, personal
It’s rare that I let my blog go 3 weeks without updating, but all of my bloggy updatey energies have been going into the 365 project. I decided early on that I needed to spend most of January on acquiring projects. This is the cycle that I’m settling into–I spend time hustling for my freelance, and once I have a good group of projects lined up, then my extra time gets put into projects like blogging and writing.
So what’s on the horizon? A newly reinvigorated Roundbottom project, with new avenues for storytelling being explored. I’m reading a lot about browser-based social games, to give you a hint. Also, a redesign of this site–I have a ton of new design ideas that I want to explore and experiment with, and my own site is the best one to try that on I think.
So, again, sorry for the radio silence. I’ll try to find some time a few times a week to update things around here so you don’t think I’m dead. Unless you’re my student loan or credit card companies. I would prefer it if you think I’m dead.
Announcing JT365
Filed Under: Photography, creativity, personal
Today is my 32nd birthday.
I can’t say that I’m happy about it. But I’m coming to terms with it.
At this point in my life, birthdays for me are a reminder of my mortality. They ceased being about gifts when I was in my teens. For a while in my college years, I thought my birthday was bad luck due to a string of nasty events around my birthday, so I went out of my way to hide it from friends well into my late 20s. I’m past that nonsense, but I still grow melancholy.
I wanted to do so much more with my life than I have. It feels as if I have squandered the last ten years, even though I know this is not so. I have some wonderful things to show for my time. Nothing of serious consequence in the greater world, but… I am content with this.
It’s time that instead of doing things to impress other people and draw attention to myself out of some misguided sense that it would be a way of achieving a kind of immortality, I have instead determined that I will attempt to dedicate my remaining time towards living a life that I can look back on without regret. As my old boss used to say, each day is a gift, and it is up to us how we use them. I have long squandered them on things that I will not remember when my time comes to pass.
So today, in an attempt to live each day more fully, to connect more with the passage of time and develop more of a sense of being here in the now, I am launching my 365 day photography project. I am taking and selecting one photograph each day for the next year. There’s nothing original about it. Many people have done these before, but I have not. I At times, I will experiment with new techniques. Sometimes, I will probably not be able to get out of bed, and so I will be forced to find some interesting way of capturing the ceiling of my bedroom.
If you all, the audience, serves a purpose in this project, it is to keep me honest. I find that when you do something like this out in the open, you feel more dedicated to the task. I let myself down often enough, but it’s a motivator to avoid letting others down. Ultimately, however, this is a project I do for myself. You’re welcome to take pleasure from the project, and I hope you do. But I’m doing this for so many more reasons than usual.
The 365 project can be found here. You can follow it on twitter here.
So that’s my primary goal right now, on the road to turning 33. We’ll see how it goes.
