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Owsley - "Owsley" ( 1999 Giant Records) Power-pop singer/guitarist (played in a band with Ben Folds!) My Photographs You like photos? I love taking them. Click here, if you wanna see some of my work
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Wednesday, Feb. 05, 2003 - 9:04 p.m. I just finished up figuring our federal and state income taxes. Yes, I started this process over the weekend, but the early results were discouraging. Neither of our workplaces had withheld enough for the Feds, and we were going to have to come up with about $1000 to pay the shortfall. Yeah, that�s bad enough. But that wasn�t all. I had claimed the �child credit� for Codeman. I thought I still could, because he is still 17. Read the information in the book, dummy. It says �was the dependant child UNDER the age of 17 at the end of 2002. UNDER 17, Roadiepig. Not 17 and under, you idiot�.. Since that is a full $600 that gets taken off of you total taxes, that means I have to come up with $1602 by April the 15th to pay what we owe, not $1002. Why did this happen? My workplace, if it had followed the proper tables, should have taken out another $890 from my twice-monthly paychecks. I made enough so that they should have been taxing me at certain tax bracket, regardless of what Lease made. For some reason, they didn�t. Lease�s W-2 is set up to take a little extra out every pay period. They only shorted her about $100 on her wages. Add the loss of the child exemption, add the extra �income� Lease received from the contest she won from the local newspaper (the Spa treatments), and it all adds up to a unexpectedly huge tax shortfall. I have already changed my W-2 for this year, but I don�t think the amount I chose will be enough now. I really don�t know how much of Codeman�s college tuition I will be able to reclaim next year. I will have to increase the additional amount another $50 a month, just to be on the safe side. We will be getting back $190 from our state taxes. So I guess they used the right tables to deduct my share of that expense. I filed this one on the Internet, as our state is one of many that now allow you to file this way for free. I had already figured it up on the forms they sent us, and made sure that everything computated the same on the e-file form I filled out online. It did. I also gave them the routing and such so the return can be direct deposited into our checking account. The web site said we should get this money in less than 2 weeks. The way our state pays its other bills (I have first-hand knowledge of this process, after all), I would not plan on receiving this small windfall for a lot longer than that. When I do notice its addition to my checking account balance, I will immediately transfer it into our savings. I will need all the help I can get to cover the federal part of the equation by mid-April�.. Enough whining. The forecast for tomorrow is for 1� or so of the fluffy white stuff. I am on nights this week, so that would mean a little more overtime than if I was on days. Every little bit will help. I guess if I were a mooch, I could start one of those web pages where people are begging total strangers for donations to pay for some expense or another. I read about a few of these a while back. One was to help pay off an overcharged credit card account. A couple were for paying someone�s college tuition. And then there was the one that was for help paying for a boob job. This 20-year-old woman (hey, I had to add the �woman� part- you never know nowadays, right?) had already managed to get suckers to send her something like over $3000 as I write this. I don�t encourage you to visit this link to send her any money. I only linked it to show you it�s for real. No, I won�t drop that low. It will just mean a little more belt tightening. And please, if you are getting a HUGE return this year, keep this one thought in mind: The Federal government had all of that money to spend all year. You get NO interest for the free loan you gave Uncle Sam. You still have to wait for them to send you the money. That might take a few more weeks. Or, better yet, you can get one of those �return anticipation� loans that H. & R. Blockhead and others are so glad to give you on your refund amount. Just don�t compute the interest rate they are extracting from you. I think some of them work out to a 12-month return (for the loaner) of over 100%! Sweet deal for them. The Roadiepig clan, on the other hand, had some of their taxes deferred until the next fiscal year. Too much, actually. I tried to use their computation tables to figure out how much (if any) penalty we will have to pay. This is the one totally honest statement I have ever seen on a Federal form: (Form 1040 booklet, page 58- information for line 74) Tip- Because Form 2210 is complicated, if you want, you can leave line 74 blank and the IRS will figure the penalty and send you a bill. We will not charge you interest on the penalty if you pay by the date specified on the bill. In certain situations, you may be able to lower your penalty, but only by filing Form 2210. But you are probably not smart enough to do that, so just leave the computations to us, bucko! O.k., I admit I added the last line. I am not crazy about letting the IRS just figure my penalty, but after trying to navigate the aforementioned Form 2210, I will be letting them do it anyway. My rough figures made it look like about $50, so I can live with that. Hey, Uncle Sam- remember this important fact: I didn�t change the tax tables. You did. I didn�t change anything about how I am set up. My employer didn�t take enough out of my check. So show me a little mercy, would you? Please? Excuse me; I think I need to go puke my guts up now���.
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