Ha ha ha haaaaa.

[prog]

My full take on book royalties throughout 2003, after taxes (I learned yesterday), is around $7,000. That's from both books, including the one that hit the shelves that year, and which I obsessed and cried over for most of the previous year.

Ayyyyyyep. I'd say "guess what I'm never doing again" but you already knew this (as did I).

Also, am getting the crap beaten out of me by taxes this year, according to TurboTax. Welllll into four digits, beyond my withholdings; ouch. Haven't filed yet, and wondering if I can save a couple grand by not claiming to have been self-employed as a technical writer (and thus avoiding the "self-employment tax"; I didn't even notice that last year, but apparently I paid it anyway). I didn't even try to write anything in 2003, but merely collected royalties from things I wrote in 2002. (I'd still claim those; that's a completely separate tax.)

Comments

[cortezopossum.livejournal.com]

I helped out... I got the OSX in a Nutshell book.

[prog.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much. :)

[treacle-well.livejournal.com]

Well if you didn't actually get paid for any self-employment you won't owe any self-employment taxes (at least as I understand it--I do have self-employment income in addition to wage income). But if you had expenses you can claim for self-employment, even though you didn't have any income, then it's not impossible that that would reduce your overall tax liability for the year (I actually don't know how that works though, since I don't really have expenses I can claim for my self-employment.)

[prog.livejournal.com]

Yeah, if I had run out and bought a new computer or something, that would alter my strategy (and it's something for me to keep in mind for next year)... but I really neither spent nor earned anything writing-related in 2003, except for the royalties. So I need to find out whether one can receive those and not be considered "employed" by Uncle Sam.