Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Taxing my Voice?

February always depresses me for two reasons, it's cold, and my tax man wants to start early knowing full well that I don't file until April 15th. Why does he do that, surely he writes this down in his multi-colored three ring binder that adorns his desk full of pencils, unfiled returns, cookie crumbs, smoldering cigarette butts and various other trivial things. I didn't make much money in Voice over in 2007, but just enough to put me in a slightly higher tax bracket, whatever that means.

I mean seriously, think about it.

You make XX amount one year, and by increasing your miniscul pay by just 100 bucks, you will create an even larger headache than you had the previous year. I bought one of those software packages to do my own taxes, but figured out that it would cost me more in therapy after attempting to install the software, read the FAQ, and gather all my tax info to "input" into this program just to find out that I'll still owe the tax man a healthy chunk of my hard earned chump change.

Here's a novel idea, why not just go ahead and take 25% off the top of each paycheck I get, to pay Mr. Fica, Ms SS, Mrs.Medicare, Joe401k,Mr and Mrs. MOKAN, and anyone else that they can think of that I may or may not owe money to or I can just bend over and take one for my team.

As a Voice over talent and producer I worry that I may be not charging enough, or maybe too much, or I'm not unique enough, you should worry too, but not too much, you're much more talented than you think, and I'm just paranoid.

Larson