Tag Archives: taxes

An Evening Of Taxes (or Not Quite As Prepared As I Had Hoped)

Posted on March 3, 2023 | Comments Off on An Evening Of Taxes (or Not Quite As Prepared As I Had Hoped)

I got my taxes done this past week. I know that there is a lot of time before they are due, especially now with the extension for CA, but I like to get them done as quickly as I can. The main reason I like doing them early is so I don’t have to be worried or stressed about how much I might owe for a long time. But also, the tax person I go to discounts her rates if you do them early. I missed the deadline to get the biggest discount, but I still saved money doing them now instead of waiting a few more weeks.

My taxes haven’t been simple for a long time, but I’ve gotten used to what I need to track and keep receipts for so it helps me stay organized throughout the year. It used to take me a lot longer to prepare for my tax appointment, but now I can usually get my packet completed in under an hour. It’s nice that all the little things I do over the year add up to saving me as much time as they did. I did notice that I didn’t have as many deductions as I used to have, but I wasn’t as worried about that since those really can vary from year to year. I also knew that in the past, I was only working 1099 jobs and in 2022 I also had a W2 job. So the estimated taxes I paid might have been more than needed since I also had taxes taken out of my paycheck. There isn’t much I can do when preparing my packet that will change what I did with my deductions or estimated payments for 2022, so I just tried to make sure I put down everything I needed to and was hoping for the best.

I’ve had a few years where I really overpaid my estimated taxes and got a nice amount back when I had my taxes done. And I’ve had other years where I’ve owed since things didn’t quite work out how I expected them to. I just know that I try my best to stay organized and pay attention to making sure I do all the things I have been told to do in order to make my appointments as easy as possible.

My tax appointment this year was another virtual one. I could have gone in person and I really did want to do that, but I would have to drive to the valley and my schedule is busier than it was when I did go in person to get my taxes done. Maybe next year I’ll be able to go there since that does make it a bit more fun. So I sent all the paperwork I needed to send in advance along with my tax packet and then a few days later I had a phone appointment to go over any questions my tax person had and to find out what was going on. There weren’t a lot of questions for me during my phone appointment since things weren’t that complicated this year compared to the past. But there were some surprises.

I had the biggest tax bill I’ve had in a long time. It’s not as bad as what others may have since I did pay quite a bit into my estimated taxes. But I really thought things would have been much better this year. But there were a few things working against me. For my job that takes taxes out of my paycheck, they are not taking out enough and I need to fix that for this year. But the bigger issue was that one of my 1099 jobs changed how some things were classified and that changed how much I owe in taxes. Since my estimated taxes were based on the old classification, I had a lot that I didn’t pre-pay like I normally do.

I was a bit shocked at how much I owed, but I also understand that this is what it’s like for a lot of people. And if I hadn’t done my estimated taxes or kept track of things the way I did, things could be easily been a lot worse. I’m also lucky that I will be able to pay what I owe from money that I had been saving for other things. I might have to delay when I buy some things that I was hoping to get, but obviously paying my taxes is more important and other things can wait.

This year, I’ll be paying more into my estimated taxes and I’m looking into how I can change how much is withheld at my other job, so hopefully, that means in a year I won’t owe as much as I do now. Maybe I’ll have more things I can use as deductions too and that will help, but I can’t guarantee those will happen. So I will just do what I can control and hope that I’ll be as prepared as possible in a year and maybe I’ll have a much more fun outcome when I get my taxes done then.

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Another Virtual Tax Appointment (or Missing The Social Time I Used To Have)

Posted on March 9, 2022 | Comments Off on Another Virtual Tax Appointment (or Missing The Social Time I Used To Have)

One of the benefits of becoming friends with the person who helps me do my taxes is that the stress I have in those appointments is usually not as bad because I’m distracted by our catch-up. And I am very grateful that I also have a tax person who understands why this is so stressful for me and tries to make things not as scary.

I was lucky in 2020 because since I do my taxes as early as possible, I did them before things shut down and I was in person at the office and it was just like all the other appointments I was used to in the past. And last year, I had my first time doing a virtual appointment but since it was with the same person at the same office, things were pretty close to what I was used to. I did have to get my paperwork submitted earlier than normal because of the virtual process, but because I have done this type of paperwork before, it was fine.

And just like so much in the world in the past 2 years, things continue to not really be back to the old normal. The office where I had been getting my taxes done closed down. The owner retired and we got an email saying that the people who we had been working with would be reaching out to us directly to let us know our options. Fortunately for me, I found out that I was going to be able to have the same person because she was going into business on her own! I emailed her immediately to tell her how grateful I was for that and to set up my appointment for my taxes.

It was another virtual appointment so I missed out on a lot of the social time that I like, but we did still get a little bit of time to be silly and not just talk about my taxes. And she only had a few questions about what I put on my forms (there are some things I’m not always sure about and she has a section where I can list them so we can go over each one). But my guesses for a lot of what I put down in the questionable section were right so it was easy enough for her to plug in all the information and get my taxes figured out quickly.

I wasn’t sure how I would do this time since I had the condo purchase to put on there and my estimated taxes weren’t going to be as accurate as before since they were based on my 2020 income which was significantly less than my 2021 income. I overpaid my estimated taxes to hopefully balance things out. And I did ok in the end. I owe money for my state return (which is expected since I don’t have estimated taxes for state) and I am getting back money on my federal return. I will be getting more money back than I owe, so that is nice. I know I’m not necessarily getting money back since this is my money I put into things, but it’s better to get something back from what I overpaid than to owe money that I didn’t pay.

I have no clue if by next year things will be a bit more normal and I’ll be going in for my taxes in person. It won’t be at the office I used to go to, but being in person would be nice since it’s been a long time with virtual appointments for so many things.

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A Different Type Of Taxes Appointment (or Sometimes I Do Better Than Expected)

Posted on March 9, 2021 | Comments Off on A Different Type Of Taxes Appointment (or Sometimes I Do Better Than Expected)

When I had my taxes appointment last year, it was before everything shut down. It was one of the last things I did before the shutdown and it seems like that was a million years ago. And I didn’t think too much about my tax appointment this year until recently and wondered how it would happen. I forgot that a lot of people who did their taxes last year had to do them after the shutdown so there was already a good system in place for not doing them in person.

I wasn’t able to get as early of an appointment as I usually do, but it was because I wasn’t going to schedule it until I had all my tax forms from my jobs. I didn’t want to be someone who makes an appointment and then doesn’t have everything needed. But I still got an appointment on the earlier side so I didn’t have to stress about things happening at the last minute.

The way appointments worked this year was a pretty great system. You make your appointment, but it’s for a week and not a specific day and time. Then you have to have all your paperwork and forms to the office the Saturday before your week and then your preparer reaches out to schedule a time for a phone call to finalize things. And I was very grateful that they let me submit my paperwork and forms through email so I didn’t have to drive to the valley. I wouldn’t mind driving since I don’t drive much, but it was just much easier to do it all at home when I only had to drop off forms.

I was a bit worried about how my taxes would go this year. I knew my income was lower than it was before, so my estimated tax payments were higher than they probably needed to be. But I also got unemployment, and I know that gets taxed and a lot of people owed money after getting unemployment. I did select to have 10% deducted for my taxes each payment, but I knew that wasn’t enough to cover everything I would owe. And I had very few deductible business expenses over the past year, so I didn’t know how much that would affect what I owed too. But as always, I was trying to be hopeful about how it would all turn out and I knew that I’d be ok no matter what happened.

My phone call was the other day and it was really nice getting to talk to Daphne. I think we both missed having our fun chat in person like we normally do and we couldn’t do a lot of chatting on the phone, but it was so nice getting to talk to her. It was a much faster appointment than normal because almost everything was entered by Daphne before our call. Normally, I bring my paperwork with me to the appointment and she does everything in front of me. But this time, she only had a few questions and it turned out I was missing one form about my healthcare (which, fortunately, I was able to access online and send to her right away).

Because there was so little as far as income and deductions, it was a bit simpler than before and not as many things that we had to figure out. I thought having unemployment would make it harder, but obviously, Daphne is a pro at this and it really wasn’t a big deal and there were no weird things we had to figure out with my forms. This was much easier than times in the past when I was on unemployment, which was nice.

And in the end, I did much better than I expected with my taxes. I’m getting money back for both federal and state, which is not normally the case. I always owe on my state return, but this year the healthcare forms were different. So some of the overpaying I did for my healthcare covered what I owed for the state. So I’m getting refunds for both and my taxes for 2020 are basically complete. I’m just waiting on the refund to be direct deposited to me.

And I have things set up for 2021 as far as estimated payments go. But because my income was so low in 2020, my estimated payments are significantly lower than I’m used to. If I paid them at the rate they are listed at, I would likely owe money when doing my taxes next year. So I’m debating about paying more than what it has on the forms. Overpaying doesn’t result in a penalty like underpaying does, so that’s a good thing. And if that helps me not owe money in a year, it’s a good thing. I’d rather pay in installments ahead of time than owe a big amount at once. But I have some time to think about it before I have to make my first estimated payment for 2021.

But for now, I’m not too worried about my 2021 taxes. I’m just glad that I got my 2020 taxes done and they were so much better than I was expecting them to be. Now I can move beyond 2020 and not have to think about money worries that the year might have caused me.

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Not Quite Winning At Taxes This Year (or Owing Money And Seeing Car Accidents)

Posted on February 26, 2020 | Comments Off on Not Quite Winning At Taxes This Year (or Owing Money And Seeing Car Accidents)

I try to get my taxes done by the end of February each year. First, I want to get them done so I know what happened with all my crazy tax situations so I don’t have to stress out about them. But also, the place I go to for my taxes has cheaper rates if you do your taxes before March. I’ve been pretty lucky with my tax situation since I have started getting them done locally instead of having my parents’ tax guy do them. There are several weird things about my taxes and what I can deduct so it’s good that I go to someone who specializes in situations like mine. Plus, my tax preparer, Daphne, has become a friend so going in to see her is always fun!

I had my appointment on Monday evening, so I gave myself plenty of time to drive there in traffic. Traffic is always bad and people are always driving crazy, but this time it was just so much worse than normal. I saw 4 car accidents happen right in front of me! Most of them were from dumb mistakes like not looking at their blind spot when changing lanes or turning on an unprotected left when a car was coming straight. I was lucky that nobody hit me, but it made me even more cautious than normal while driving there.

I got to my appointment early because of how much time I gave myself to get there, so I had some time to relax before the stress of seeing what will happen with my taxes. I have been very lucky with getting money back when I pay my estimated payments correctly and with the deductions that I am allowed to take because all my jobs are independent contractor work. But this time, when I was preparing for my appointment I felt like I didn’t have as many deductions as I normally do. So as I prepared my forms I thought that perhaps this time I would owe money instead of getting money back. Fortunately, I still had some money saved from what I set aside with each paycheck, so I had money to pay if I did owe.

I try my best to be super organized with my taxes and paperwork when going into my appointment, and I know that Daphne really appreciates that I do that. It makes her job a bit easier when everything is ready for her to enter it into the system and she doesn’t have to search for something or ask me what I meant by something I filled out. I will also say, the packet that everyone who goes to the office I go to needs to fill out before an appointment helps too. And I have started to organize my things throughout the year in a similar system so when I fill the packet out I can do it quickly.

Because things were so organized, Daphne was able to see quickly that I would owe money. And she and I decided to investigate a bit because it said I owed about $1000 and in the past, it was so different even if I did owe. I thought maybe I didn’t have enough deductions because there were a few things that I usually spend money on that I didn’t in 2019. But when we compared my deductions, I was very close to the same amount in 2018. But then we realized there was a significant difference in my income and how much I paid in estimated taxes.

I made a lot more with both of my jobs in 2019. I had gotten a small raise with my customer service job and I had more hours on my contract with my data entry job. Obviously, both of those things are good and making more money is a good thing. And my estimated payments this past year were the lowest I paid since I started doing them correctly because of my lower income in 2018. So I made a lot more and pre-paid a lot less. Those combined meant I owed the $1000 form said I did. It all made sense once we figured that out.

And I do appreciate that Daphne took the time with me to figure out why I owed this year. Because entering my information was so quick, there was extra time in my appointment to do that investigating work. I’m sure that I could have figured it out on my own eventually, but it was nice to not have that question in my head when I left and feel more confident knowing what happened while I was still sitting there with someone who could explain it to me.

I will be paying the money I owe soon (I’ve got almost 2 months to pay it and I want to work on a few budgeting things first) and then I’ll be done with all my 2019 taxes. But I start paying my estimated taxes for 2020 in 2 months, so I’ll be doing that and working on making sure that I do everything I can to bring down how much I owe.

I left my appointment feeling good even though I do owe money. It’s something I expected and it didn’t upset me. But just like on my drive to getting my taxes done, my drive home was filled with seeing car accidents happen in front of me! I saw 2 very small fender benders that didn’t seem to have much damage. But when I was on the freeway close to my house, traffic stopped and the car in front of me didn’t see that. They hit the car in front of them at full speed and I was very lucky that I was able to slam on my brakes and avoid the cars. I guess it’s a good thing that I don’t follow other cars that closely. Both of the cars in that accident looked like they were totaled and there were pieces of the cars all over the freeway.

I have no idea how to connect the car accidents with getting my taxes done but seeing that many accidents made me think about how sometimes we might get a bit lazy with following the rules you should follow when driving. Sometimes we follow too close, don’t look in our mirrors enough, speed, or think that we have the right of way when we don’t. It was a good reminder to be a cautious driver just like I am cautious with so many other aspects of my life.

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It’s Tax Time (or Seeing My Tracking And Organizing Pay Off)

Posted on March 6, 2019 | Comments Off on It’s Tax Time (or Seeing My Tracking And Organizing Pay Off)

I don’t think anybody looks forward to doing their taxes. It can be scary and overwhelming and a lot of the time you have no clue if you are going to owe money or get money back. I think this year is even crazier because there are so many new laws that affect taxes and people have no idea how it will affect things for them. The stories I have been seeing online all talk about how tax refunds are much lower than they usually are or people who normally get money back are owing for the first time.

I know that my situation is a bit different from many others. First, all of my income is 1099 or independent contractor work. I don’t have any taxes taken out of my paychecks and I have to make sure I save money. I also pay estimated taxes 4 times a year to cover what is assumed to be my tax bill for the year. I have only been doing this for a few years, but I am very careful about this and make sure I stay on top of it all. And it has been working out well for me the past few years. If I owe money, it’s less than what I saved up to cover my taxes. And last year, I actually got money back!

I had a pretty good feeling that I would be getting a little money back this time. My estimated taxes were based on the money that I made in 2017, and I made less money in 2018. So my estimated payments actually had me overpaying my taxes. I also knew my health insurance is always a weird thing with my subsidy not being the correct amount. I felt pretty certain that I was paying more than I should for it, but I wasn’t totally sure because again there are so many new rules this time.

Before I had my appointment to get my taxes done, I got a call regarding my appointment. The person who does my taxes had an appointment come up the afternoon I was going to come in and I was given 2 options. First, I could pick another date and I would still be charged the February rate (which is the cheapest rate). Or, I could email in the worksheets we do before the appointment so a majority of the information would be already in the system before I arrived. I picked emailing in my worksheet since I already had done all the work. My appointment was only going to be 30 minutes short (usually they are 90 minutes) and I knew getting all of that information already in the system would easily cut the appointment down by 30 minutes or more.

There was still some work that we had to work on together when I went in for my appointment. There were a few things I wasn’t totally sure I did right and there were a few sections that needed a bit more information. I brought everything in with me and I had everything we needed, I just didn’t do it ahead of time since usually it’s all done at the appointment.

And while everything was getting figured out, I did learn that the new tax rules weren’t going to affect me like they affect a majority of people who get their taxes done. Since I am a sole proprietor/independent contractor, I can still write off my business expenses. If you are an employee, the costs of doing business cannot be deducted (for example, teachers can no longer write off buying supplies as a deduction). But for me, all of my expenses can still be written off like they have in the past. That’s a good thing since I have to pay a decent amount of money in cyber security insurance (required by my job since I take credit card information and put it into our secure online server) and I pay for things like a separate phone line just for work. I didn’t have as many deductions as I have had in the past, but it was still a lot of them.

Every year that I get my taxes done, I learn new things about how to organize and track things. I finally have it down to a system that I am extremely happy with and it made me doing my worksheet much easier this year compared to before. And I know that my tax preparer appreciates all the work I do and knows that I have everything ready for her if she needs to see it. She also mentioned she only allowed me to email in my worksheet ahead of time and have a reduced appointment time because she knew how on top of things and organized I am.

While it’s nice to have my organization appreciated by my tax preparer, it’s even better to see that work pay off. And as I expected, I am getting money back this year! And it’s actually a lot more money than I was expecting. A good chunk of that money is from overpaying for healthcare and that’s only because I tracked my business deductions so well. My taxable income gets reduced by those expenses and my financial responsibility for my insurance is based on taxable income and not the full income I have. That is a difference between being an employee and an independent contractor and I didn’t know that. I assumed it was based on my pre-tax income and that’s why I had my income set the way I did last year. I don’t know if I’ll adjust it for this year since I’d rather overpay and have that money go toward anything I owe in taxes than to underpay and owe a lot of money.

I was so relieved to see that the work I put into tracking and organizing was worth it. It does take time to file everything properly so I have it ready at tax time, but the money I got back easily paid for the time I took to do that. And it will be nice to get a refund this year. I really need the money and a lot of it will be going toward bills. I will also use it to pay off my Disneyland pass since I had to set it to be monthly payments this time. I’d rather just have it paid and not have to have it taken out of my credit card each month. I don’t know if I’ll use it for anything else fun since I should be responsible and put it toward bills, but I’ll see how things go.

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Tax Time Again! (or It’s A Taxes Miracle!)

Posted on February 27, 2018 | Comments Off on Tax Time Again! (or It’s A Taxes Miracle!)

I’ve been getting my taxes done by Daphne at Sloan and Associates for a few years now. First of all, if you are in any creative field or have any type of nontraditional work life, I highly recommend going to Daphne or anyone else at the office for your taxes. The way she understands how to help me organize my taxes is amazing and I have learned so much from watching her work that has made me better at tracking my deductions.

Even though Daphne has been amazing with my taxes each year, I do still get nervous before going in because I never want to owe more than what I saved. And while I am pretty good with keeping track of expenses, somehow in 2017 things didn’t go exactly how I planned. I knew I screwed up a bit with my tracking of medical expenses in the beginning of the year. That’s because I was expecting to have surgery and I figured that I would hit my out-of-pocket maximum and that would be what I deducted on my taxes. But when I didn’t need surgery, I realized I didn’t track all my medical tests and things. Also, somehow I lost several receipts for meals I had that were business related. Even though those don’t add up to a ton, I like to be as perfect as possible.

So when I went to my appointment with Daphne last week, I was a bit scared that these little mistakes would cause me to owe a lot. I still felt confident that I would owe less than I saved, especially since I paid all my estimated taxes, but it’s always nice to have extra money to help with expenses (like my Pantages tickets which I just renewed). I had spent a few days before the appointment getting extra organized and making sure I had all my forms filled out to the best of my ability. Doing that makes Daphne’s job easier and that gives her time to see if there are any things I missed out on that I should be aware of for the next year. I always err on the side of caution, but because so much of doing taxes is being aware of what deductions I’m eligible for and making sure I do things right, I feel like it’s a game.

When I got to my appointment, I was pretty excited to see Daphne. She’s awesome and we always have fun, even when she’s doing my taxes. And I know she likes how organized I am and it always makes her happy that her job is easier. And just like she had the past few times, she showed me the worst-case scenario first before she put in my deductions so I could breathe a little easier knowing things would be ok. Although this year was the first year that the worst-case was actually higher than what I saved! But I knew it would be going down a lot. I had a lot of work expenses like liability insurance that I had to buy and my home office (which is usually a risky deduction, but in my work contracts it states my office is at my home).

While Daphne was entering in all my deductions and income, we also had fun chatting. She recently got a Disney pass so we were talking about how we want to have a Disney day once tax season is over. I know she’ll need some fun after doing everyone’s taxes! She’s also a musical person and I was telling her about the shows coming up. She can’t do season tickets, but she might join us for a show either this season or next.

It seemed like this year it was much quicker for Daphne to enter everything into the system for my taxes. I didn’t know if that was because I had fewer deductions than I did in the past or that things were just easier now. It did make me have a few moments of minor panic that I didn’t do a good enough job. But when she was done, she told me to look at the screen at what she was about to click on.

She was clicking on the button to say how I wanted my refund sent to me! I couldn’t believe I was getting a refund! I thought she was kidding at first and thought it was a joke, but she was totally serious! Between my estimated payments, my deductions, and the money I get back for overpaying my health insurance (my subsidy wasn’t at the right amount for my income level), I actually was getting a small refund! It was unbelievable but also proof that if I listened to what Daphne taught me each time that I could make sure that I don’t owe much (or anything) at tax time. Everyone is fearful of working 1099 jobs because you owe money at tax time, but if you do everything you are supposed to do it doesn’t have to be that way.

After everything for state and federal was done, I do technically owe a little bit. I owe $30 more in my state taxes than I am getting back in my federal refund. But even owing $30 is nothing compared to what I’ve owed in the past or what I was prepared to owe this time. I know a lot of it was because my estimated tax payments were so high, but paying it throughout the year is so much better than paying it all at once. And it saved me from owing a penalty on federal taxes as well! My estimated payments for 2018 are about what I paid in 2017, so I’m hopeful that I should be able to keep my tax bill at tax time next year low again. I don’t know if I’ll get it down so much that I get a refund (I probably won’t get the money back from healthcare as my subsidy was corrected and I shouldn’t have as much in healthcare expenses), but I am more confident in my ability to track the expenses for work so that what I save for tax time doesn’t all have to go to taxes.

I’m so happy that I do have some extra money that I wasn’t planning on. Some of it needs to go to things I have already gotten (like paying back for my Pantages tickets) and I will use some for bills and toward my credit card debt. But I do want to see if there is something else that is small but fun that I want. I’m not going to use a lot of that money, but maybe getting a purse I’ve been wanting that is not cheap or doing a fun spa day could be a nice reward for the hard work. But I might just put it all toward my debt because that is the more responsible thing to do and I want to get that number to 0 sooner rather than later.

But whatever I end up doing with the money that I have leftover from saving for taxes, I am just so glad that my hard work paid off and that I am understanding how to manage my taxes so much better now. I feel in control with taxes and understand so much more than I ever did. I know what I need to track and what expenses to be aware of. And I have Daphne to thank for that because she really took the time to make sure that when I leave each time that I don’t have any questions or confusion about why my taxes were the way they were. I know she was giving credit to me for working hard and doing all the right things last year on my taxes, but I give her the credit because she is the one who taught me how to do that.

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It’s Taxes Time (or Seeing My Hard Work Pay Off)

Posted on March 7, 2017 | 1 comment

I don’t think that anyone is excited to do their taxes and owe money. Because of my jobs, I know I will owe money each year. None of my jobs take my taxes out for me, and even though I do my estimated payments like I need to they are usually not enough to cover what I owe. I know this is the situation I’m in so I am as prepared as possible for tax time. I save all my work related receipts (and there are a ton of them) and I save money out of every paycheck to use at tax time. But even with that, I’m always nervous that the news is going to be bad when I get my taxes done.

I went to Daphne at Chuck Sloan and Associates again and I’m so glad I did! First of all, everyone at Chuck Sloan understands actor and creative type taxes and the unique situations we are all in. They aren’t scared by dozens of jobs and the forms and all the weird deductions we need to do. And they understand how stressful tax time can be for us all. But I’m so happy that I have Daphne doing my taxes because she’s extra awesome! We bonded the last time she did my taxes over Disneyland and since I was going to Disneyland after doing my taxes with her I knew we’d talk about that.

Last year, Daphne showed me the worst case scenario with my taxes before she put in all my deductions so that I would feel better about how much I had saved up. I had asked her to do that for me again and once again it was less than what I had saved for my taxes. That’s always a huge relief because I know that no matter what I will have enough money to pay what I owe. But since now I’m feeling more comfortable with that, it was all about how well I tracked my work spending and tracked my deductions.

I like to think that I’m a pretty organized person and that I did a good job tracking expenses in 2016. Since I had my taxes done by Daphne once already, I knew what I should be aware of and what can be deducted. There are so many accountants that let you deduct things that aren’t totally on the up and up, so I’m glad Daphne is very careful in her work and tells me when things look weird (like how I accidentally tracked buying my new computer twice). I’m sure that there is more that I can deduct, but I’m still learning how to do the best that I can.

And even though I thought I had done all my tracking without missing things, there were a few things that I totally forgot about and I’m so glad we went over any other expenses I might have had in the year. I forgot that I got a new phone (which I do have to use for acting and my research job) and for some reason I never tracked the money that I spent to produce “Single Parent Date Night”. This is another reason I love having Daphne do my taxes. She knew to ask about these sort of things just in case I didn’t remember to track them on my paperwork (I’m sure anyone at Chuck Sloan would do the same since they know to look for these things).

In the end, I owed less than half of what I had saved for my taxes. This is so much better than I ever could have imagined! The money left over is going to be saved for another trip to New York that my sister-in-law and I are hoping to take next year. I still have more time to save more money, but I think what I have left over from my taxes savings should be able to cover pretty much the entire trip! I was only hoping that I would have about half of what I needed for that trip leftover so having this much is a big surprise to me and it making me relax a bit about how I will be able to afford that trip.

I’ve already written my checks to the IRS and sent them off so I’m now totally done with doing my 2016 taxes. It’s nice to get them done early enough so there isn’t a huge rush to do them at the last minute. And I’ve already started planning on what I can do this year to make the taxes easier next year. I will be paying more in estimated taxes, so that will help how much I owe. But I also now will be tracking my expenses even better because I learned where I was slacking last year that caused me to miss out on some potential deductions.

While it was nice in the past to be very uninvolved in my taxes, that’s not a luxury I can afford anymore. I know that with my current jobs that I will always owe money at the end of the year and I like being able to sit down with Daphne and go over everything so I understand why I owe what I do. I can see what deductions took off what and where I could have done better. I guess being more involved with all of this is just something that is required when you want to be more responsible and acting more like an adult.

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Tax Time (or Happy To Owe The Government Some Money)

Posted on March 8, 2016 | 1 comment

I just had my taxes done last week and it was a totally different experience than I’ve ever had. So I wanted to share it with all of you in case you are still looking for a tax preparer.

In the past, I’ve always had my parents’ accountant do my taxes. When I lived at home (when I was working in high school), my parents just brought him what I made and to be honest I have no idea if I ever owed anything. Those jobs were pretty part-time and if I did owe something, maybe my parents helped me out. Once I moved to LA, I got a tax preparation packet from the accountant in the beginning of each year. I’d fill it out, make a list of my deductions, and stick all of that plus my W2 and 1099 forms in an envelope and mailed it to my parents. They brought it in for me and everything was done. I’d get a letter in the mail a few weeks later either saying how much I owed or how much I’d get back.

It was fine, but I realized last year that I needed to be a much more active participant in my taxes. 2015 was the first year that all of my income was 1099. And while I did pay estimated taxes (although I’d learn not enough so I still had a penalty), I knew I’d owe more money. I was prepared to owe money and had been saving about 1/3 of every paycheck I got. But I was still worried that it wasn’t enough.

So many of my actor friends recommended going to Chuck Sloan and Associates for taxes, so I made an appointment there. They are cheapest if you go in January or February (although they are always pretty affordable), so I made my appointment for the last day of February. Even before my appointment, I became a fan of the office. I had to change my appointment time a couple of times due to conflicts that came up, and they never seemed annoyed or bothered by that. They just gave me a new time and seemed happy that I’d be coming in.

Since I work from home, I wasn’t sure what the rush hour situation would be like on the freeway (the office is in the valley). I gave myself a little over an hour to get there, but made it in 20 minutes! So I sat in my car and listened to podcasts while I waiting for my appointment time.

Chuck Sloan

I was assigned Daphne as my tax preparer. And even though I know I was assigned to her randomly, I felt like it was fate that she was helping me. She totally got how nervous I was about everything and we chatted a bit about our mutual love of podcasts before getting down to business.

I had explained to Daphne that while I had saved money and paid estimated taxes that I was so worried that I would still owe more than I could afford. So instead of doing everything at once, she entered all of my income, unemployment information, and health insurance information to show me the absolute worst case scenario I could be in.

And even that was less than what I had saved!

I was so happy that I wouldn’t have to figure out where to get extra money to pay my taxes that I burst into tears. I was crying out of relief from the stress I had felt from the past year and from the joy knowing that the first time I tried to be more involved in my taxes that I did do something right.

Daphne was happy to explain all the deductions that she entered for me. I was terrified to put down a home office because I’ve heard that is often a red flag for the IRS. I do work my jobs from home, so it is totally reasonable for me to put down a home office on my taxes. It still makes me a bit nervous that I did that, but Daphne reassured me that when you work as a virtual employee (like I do), it’s expected to have a home office on your taxes.

After everything was entered, explained, and double checked; Daphne showed me my total tax bill. And it ended up being less than half of what I had set aside to pay my taxes! While I wish that I was getting a refund or owing even less than that, anything less than what I had saved is awesome! I don’t have to worry about borrowing money or figuring out a payment plan with the IRS. I just sent in my checks and it’s done.

I really cannot thank Daphne and the rest of the employees at Chuck Sloan and Associates enough. They worked together as a team to make sure that I was getting all the deductions that I deserved and that everything was perfect before it was sent it. They dealt with my craziness, my stress, and my tears without looking at me weird. And they made me excited to get my taxes done! I doubt most people could say that.

When Daphne was working with me on my taxes we went over a couple of ideas of how I could organize things better for 2016, and I’m working on implementing those now. It mainly has to do with organizing things by type and not by month since the IRS doesn’t care about when things were purchased or paid for, just what category all of that money goes into.

I know that I’ll be going back to Daphne next year for my taxes since she was the first financial type person I’ve worked with who didn’t look down on me for how little money I had, got the weird things I spend my money on for work, and totally got my organizational system. And having someone like that on my team is invaluable for me.

Taxes By Daphne

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