4:27:00 PM 3/7/09 Sara Softness: if you keep the boring philosophy posts to a minimum
I'm doing my taxes today. Is this boring philosophy? Ich don't sink so! Here are free fings all u kids out there should knowz about doing your own taxes!!!1111 (Disclaimer: this isn't financial advice, nor am I a professionally qualified professional qualified to give you advice. If doing anything I say below gets you in trouble, you chose to do this on your own.)
0) It is not that hard. It really isn't. With a little prep, and some understanding (provided below), you can do it on your own. I mean, until you make enough to be able to afford to pay someone else to do it. Glossary at the bottom
1) Use turbo tax. It costs like $30, but it's the best $30 you'll ever spend. I could explain why, but I'd rather you take my word. Email me if you must. ben dot softness at gmail dot com.
2) Here's what you need:
- A computah.
You can do everytihng from a computer now. Do not try to do it otherwise. Even grandma cookie e-files. Note of clarification: an etch-a-sketch works fine as well.
- W2s.
These are the forms you get from anyone you worked for in the previous year. If you're like me (read: grown-up), you have just one, it's from Google, and it has a pretty sweet number in the "total" column. If you're like my Classe American compadres, you probably have 3 or 4, some are from Amherst, some are from summer jobs, and none made you any real money (sorry). Just the same, you need them.
- The tax forms your bank gives you.
All money you "make" is taxable, and "make" is pretty generally defined. Do you have a shitty savings account that paid you 14 cents of interest a month all year? Count it. You can get most of this info online from your bank.
- An accounting of money you made in the market.
If you have stock that you sold for a gain, that's what people call "capital gains." You'll call it taxable income, and you need to know the exact amount. (If you sold shit for a loss, you can deduct that amount from your income.)
- An accounting of any other income.
Really any other income.
3) They're going to take about 2 hours, all told. They're due on April 15, or as its classically known, Boxing Day (jk, that's 12/26 -- trivia, kids).
Glossary.
- "doing your taxes"
Starting real basic here. The government -- actually governments, both state and federal -- needs money to operate and they get the bulk of it by taxing income. They tax all money that companies make, and they tax all money that you make. Doing your taxes is just adding up all the money you made, looking up on a chart how much that means you owe to the state and the feds, and seeing if you already paid it or not, and then settling up. (Note: turbo tax does all of this; you just tell it what you made.)
- deductions
You basically have to "claim" any money you make, but there are some exceptions. For instance, to encourage people to give to charity, the government lets you treat money you gave to charity as money you didn't make. In other words, if you made 50 grand, but gave 1 grand of that away to charity, you can say you made only 49 grand - and as such pay taxes on just 49 grand. Those one thousand dollars are "deducted" from your income; the donation was "deductible." This is also known as "writing it off."
- Refunds, etc.
Your paycheck is always for less than you really make -- income minus income tax -- so what the hell are we even talking about. Well, the government does indeed try to head this off at the pass by taxing you all year, but they tend to get it wrong. They tax every paycheck you get as if that's the amount you make every week, all year. Get that? In other words, if you work over the summer and make $500 a week, they tax you as if you make $500 a week all year -- that is, about $24,000 a year. But you only worked three months and made only $6,000, so you really didn't deserve to be taxed like someone making 24 grand. You'll be requiring a refund.
Oh god they're so going to eject me from the blog,
Ben
No comments:
Post a Comment