Ah, Tax Time

I was speaking with my mother last night. The conversation went something like this:

"As soon as I finish playing this game I'm playing, I have to start on my taxes."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. I'm hoping the game takes at least two more weeks."

For those following at home, the game is Empire Total War. I tend alternate my PC games between the oldest unplayed in my library and a newer "player's choice" game. The game after Empire Total War will be Rise of the Tomb Raider, which I got for Christmas. But I digress.

I have a tax guy. Or gal. I don't know. I turn it in and someone at the company does it. Last time it was the head of the organization because I messed up on my HSA and no one knew how to deal with the penalty for that. Usually, it's a minion. I highly recommend having a tax person walk you through the pitfalls of being a private business owner when you first go into business as a writer. For instance, don't write the word "Research" on a deduction. Evidently, that's a red flag.

I was lucky in that I found a tax guy (it was definitely a guy at the time) that was very affordable and sat down and spent an hour or so with me the first time, just walking me through the hurdles. Since then, he's passed away and his company has been absorbed, and the price goes up each year, but only 20 dollars so it will be a while before it gets as expensive as some of the big companies. In the meantime, all the people in the office know me by name.

So the big push is that I need to get tax forms OUT for the people I send royalties to by the end of the month. That means I should probably reconcile my end of year books for Final Redoubt Press as well. 1099s need to go to by January 31st. If the game takes two weeks, it will need to pause for that, obviously, because that needs to happen in the next day or two.

After that, I have to do the big push for my taxes themselves, and that used to take me two weeks, but since I started digitizing my receipts, I think that takes less time. It might only have taken a week last year. We'll see.

Anyway. I need a new gaming PC. And the guy who inherits my old gaming PC, and who uses them to Hangout with us on Saturdays REALLY needs my old gaming PCs. (Each week that goes by the chances go up we lose him for good as that really old machine just dies forever). And so I need to get my taxes done. So that I can play whatever comes after Rise of the Tomb Raider. Looks like one of the Command and Conquer games. And so he can use Google Hangouts without three reboots a night. Wish me luck. Hopefully, we will not lose contact with a friend and I will be neither commanded nor conquered.