All the 1099s have arrived, so that means it's time to do the taxes again. Which meant, for me, a hunk of time spent entering receipts into Excel, because I never keep up with that stuff and leave it all to the last minute.
Supplies, Equipment, Services, Postage, Marketing. Those are my receipt types. With columns for dates, amounts, vendors, and what the thing was exactly (paper, ink, etc.) Last year, by my reckoning, I spent about $2K getting three books to market. More than I made, but less than half of what I spent the year before, so I guess it's all good.
Yeah, I do my own taxes. We aren't to the point yet where I can't handle it. If things change, we'll hire someone. For now, I slap down the money for Turbotax (Home and Business, I think?) online. I've been using them so long that they have all my pertinent information going back 10+ years and I'm used to them.
The other day, when I went to print my 1099s off Amazon, I discovered they've streamlined the process. Previously, they issued a separate 1099 for each Amazon store (i.e. each country plus Createspace). This year, it's all on one 1099. Woohoo. Let me tell ya, entering each of those 1099s last year was a pain in the patootie.
Then I thought I was off by like $20. I spent some time wondering where the hell I went wrong only to remember that the last two months of 2016 haven't been paid yet and the last two months of 2015, which were paid in 2016 were about $10 lighter than this year's. And then I realized I had like $10 on my Draft2Digital 1099. Eureka! I love it when the numbers match.
Anyway, I'll be plugging away at that stuff sometime this morning. After more coffee. And my Monday call to Mom. They should be done today, though. Which is good. And then I won't have to worry about it anymore. Get 'em out of the way early, I say.
What about you? Are you a do them ASAP kind of person or do you wait until April 14th? And if you're in another country, how's tax time in your world?
I do them ASAP (well, hand them to a CPA ASAP), but I'm still waiting on a few stragglers. I noticed the same thing about Amazon this year--woo-hoo!
ReplyDeleteThe DH does ours. I just drop the stuff on his desk, though I do go through my folder of receipts and do a spreadsheet so he has a total for expenses. More often than not, just as easy (same return) to take standard deduction.
ReplyDeleteI love TurboTax! I buy the cheapest version, and (most years) they allow me to stick numbers into the Schedule C. (One year they made me buy that part extra.)
ReplyDeleteAmazon all-in-one is wonderful! Double check it, though. They sent me an email that they'd made a mistake, and had me re-download it. Apparently I earned $2 less than they thought. LOL!