Kids, here's a lesson for you. When you want to start working, which is something everyone should do, be entitled to do, and be able to do, make sure you work for someone or somewhere that automatically takes taxes out of your paycheck.
For a little over a year now, I have been working for an Internet solutions company called Web Strategies as a consultant. Basically, whenever someone over at WS has a project they need help on, or just flat-out don't feel like doing, they send it my way and I take care of it. The work is fine, not too much at one time, and my boss is awesome. She's a cool lady, and Justin was my liaison to her for me to get hired. I really enjoy my job and the fact that I can get paid for a job I do in my PJs.
But then tax season came this year.
All last year, when I would get my paycheck, I noticed that my pay was very close to what I had calculated it to be. This wasn't good because I had accounted for taxes and I knew in my gut that taxes weren't being taken out. Even though I strongly suspected this, I didn't do anything about it. I figured that as an employee, if anyone got in trouble it would be Beth since she was the employer and was responsible for tax stuff.
This is not the case, you see.
Back when Beth first hired me, she had me fill out tax forms, but they were bare-bones tax forms. As in, she needed me to fill these out for my position in the company to be legal. I of course thought these were forms that handled the whole tax thing, and didn't think anything else of it. I had never had a job that didn't take out taxes. In these forms, I was called "consultant." This word translates to something called, "Independent Contractor," and I didn't realize this. IC means that you work for yourself, you are your own boss, and therefore you are responsible for your own taxes.
Where am I going with all of this?
Well, when Justin and I went to do our taxes, because I was now considered an IC, we had to pay my entire year's worth of taxes right then and there. I didn't have a W2 for this company, I didn't get anything back. I had to pay what should have been taken out.
I cried. Hard. In public. Ugh.
I argued with the tax lady that I didn't own the company, and that I worked for them and not for myself. She argued back that since I worked from home on a computer that was not solely purchased for this job that I was considered an IC and that we had to pay my taxes. Granted, we only owed $70, which could have been so much worse! Think about what you get in a tax return! Jeez.
That's why my job sucks so hard. But that's just the bigger half. The smaller half is the actual income. The tax lady also told us that if I earned less than $400 this year, we wouldn't have to file my shit under this awful form that cost us almost $100 to file. God was I humiliated. I have been crunching numbers ever since. In order to earn less than $400 this year, I can only "work" half an hour every week. That gives me an hour every two weeks, which makes $15. In one month, I can earn $30, which is my monthly cap.
Here's the sucky part.
In the month of January, before we had our taxes done and I still thought I could mark up some decent time on my time sheet, I worked 4.5 hours instead of two. I have to make up for that somewhere along this year. So, on four different weeks, I can't mark any hours for myself. Basically, I have to sacrifice an entire month without pay. Not that that would hurt me. $30 just isn't a lot of money.
I'm thinking about asking Beth if maybe we could treat this as an internship instead of a job. She wouldn't have to pay me, and I could still work for the sake of learning. I don't know yet if I'm going to do that. She called today to discuss adding some things to my plate, as Whitney, a girl who works in the WS office, is quitting, and someone will need to make up for her slack. So now, I'm going to be taking on other tasks on top of what I already do and don't bill myself enough time for, and I can't mark time for any of it.
Maybe I should just quit.
Being a grown-up sucks sometimes.
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