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TaxingApril 15, 2009 Well, I got 'em done and into the mail by 5 p.m. The post office window was closed by then, but the postmaster was still around and she said everything would be postmarked today. I did the down-and-dirty draft on Monday night, after the usual amount of procrastination and an extra beer. OK, I'll 'fess up: two extra beers. I was trying to finish editing a scholarly article and get it to the authors -- that's my excuse for blowing off town meeting last night and for not doing my final draft of U.S. Form 1040 and Massachusetts Form 1 until this afternoon. Rude shock: Massachusetts no longer accepts copies of the U.S. Schedule C (for self-employment income), and of course this is the first year I've had to do two Schedule Cs. Why didn't they tell me? Well, all right, I should have looked at the instructions before 2 p.m. on April 15th. The federal and state forms were just enough different that I had to think about what went in which category and recheck my math a couple of times. The Schedule C for Susanna J. Sturgis, Editor, was same old same-old. The other one was total improv. My name, address, and Social Security number were easy. Then the questions started, like what am I doing? (I wonder this a lot.) What do I call myself? Publisher? Not quite. Bookseller? Not quite. Author? Yeah, but authors don't necessarily buy and sell books and incur bills for advertising and PR. I finally settled on "publisher." Then I had to figure out where the various expenses went, and hope that I didn't look too fly-by-night and scammish, with that much money going out and that little coming in. ("It's copacetic, Ms. Tax Lady -- my book didn't come out till the end of the year.") Not that we're talking "much" money in an absolute sense, mind you, but it was enough to lower my taxes some: I never did make my fourth quarterly estimated payment, but it turned out I only owed the feds $356 anyway, and the commonwealth owes me $304. Every year I have the same feeling: There's no way I can make these forms accurately reflect my life. What percentage of my phone bill is business-related and what percentage is personal? Huh? My business is personal. My person is engaged in my business. And why is it so hard to imagine that some of us who work from home work at kitchen or dining tables and don't have a separate office with a door that shuts? And this year, like every previous year, I managed to translate what I do into numbers and print the numbers on the appropriate lines. On the other end, they'll see the lines and the numbers, make sure they're all in the right place and that they all add up. They won't even try to translate it back into Susanna J. Sturgis, Editor and Publisher (?). Just as well. I might give them a piece of my mind along with that chunk of my income.
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