Tax question

[stacer]

For you professional writers, I have a question. There's this thing in the depreciation handbook that says that if you maintain a library for your business, you can depreciate it. Do any of you do this? How would you go about doing it? I have a whole bunch of books that I think would apply, but they've all been put in service at different times, have different values, etc. I think this would be useful for me, but I'm not sure if it's valid or can be done in the next, um, 8 hours.

[stacer]

Yeah, nevermind. Too much trouble to figure out. But it would be interesting to know about for next year.

[EUOL]

Hum.  I didn't notice that one.  I did deduct my book purchases, however.  

[stacer]

Did you just do them as business expenses, like supplies?

[EUOL]

Yeah.  I think so.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

my solution is to get my taxes done in February. I already get so much back being underpaid and with so many children, that extra deductions won't have a tangible effect.

[stacer]

I usually get mine done way way early, and have the refund in hand before most people think of filing. But this year, because of the way my job was, I didn't get anything withheld, so what with self-employment tax, etc., I ended up owing. So I filled out the forms and everything back in Feb., but waited till the last minute possible to actually file--the minute I actually had money to pay the taxes.  

[Entsuropi]

I already get so much back being underpaid

Eh. Thought with degree of mucho masterwork intelligence and so on you would be on good wage?

Also : you should try being on UK taxes My dad told me to expect to lose half my wage to taxes at first, while i was on an emergency code (which is the same code used for ppl on management wages i think).

[Mistress of Darkness]

It kind of depends what *kind* of degree you get.

I have an English BA myself, and it's not very useful for getting a high paying job.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

I was just assuming it was the dry Brit humor sort of thing. Since there is really nothing you can do that a bachelor's degree in comparative literature would bear on. I do make more than most manual laborers, primarily because I have a college education and that counts for something, (which thing, I assume, is that I've proven I can accomplish difficult tasks).

[Mistress of Darkness]

. . . with your brain, rather than your arms.

[House of Mustard]

This is the best I could find, Stacer:

I.R.C. § 179. Election to Expense Depreciable Property

Section 179(a) provides that a taxpayer may elect to treat the cost of any tangible personal property (e.g., a computer or typewriter) acquired for use in the active conduct of his trade or business as a current expense instead of a capital asset which must be depreciated over a period of years.

The § 179 deduction limit per year will increase, as follows:

1997 $18,000
1998 $18,500
1999 $19,000
2000 $20,000
2001 or 2002 $24,000
2003 or after $25,000

The total cost of property that may be expensed instead of depreciated for any tax year cannot exceed the taxable income of the taxpayer that is derived from the active conduct of any trade or business. In other words, the taxpayer has to have taxable income from the active conduct of a trade or business to use the § 179 election, but the income can be from any business of the taxpayer, not necessarily writing.

I couldn't find anything specifically about your library.  Sorry.

EUOL, Stacer, and all others in the writing profession ought to check out this link.  It's very interesting: http://www.eclectics.com/articles/taxes.html

[stacer]

Thanks for that link, Mustard. I'll have to look it over more in depth later, but it looks to reinforce what I've already learned so far. I gave up on the library thing because I couldn't find anything besides that one little mention of it. I don't do section 179; I depreciate my computer.

It's been pretty interesting to have to file like this for the last couple of years because of my freelance status. I'm not a book author, but as a freelancer it's the same kind of thing tax-wise. Personally, I'd much rather just have the company have me as a regular employee and have them take all the taxes out, etc.--plus you get benefits. And now I'm on contract at Houghton, and benefits did just start for me this week.... whew, it's nice to have again. But I do want to continue freelancing, and if I can get a first draft done like I'm intending by the end of summer, it might just be a possibility to do more than just articles for Electrical Apparatus magazine. :-) So it's good training, I guess, to have to figure all this out.