Between my first year of significant Web earnings, my retirement withdrawals, and us moving to another country, you can imagine how entertaining our taxes were this year! Thank goodness I married an accountant. David submitted our taxes the other night, after a whole lot of work.
Because none of my Web earnings were withheld over the past year, and I got huge penalties for the pension withdrawal, we had been saving up as much as we could for the inevitable tax bite. But hurray, David discovered education credits! We got a major tax credit for my tuition fees, which saved the day.
Then, David discovered that I made enough from my online advertising to be considered "self-employed." That was at first a bad thing, as the taxes seem worse. But it also meant I was able to deduct all the expenses for my websites! That turned out to be somewhat substantial, between web design programs, books on religion, some advertising efforts, and what not. And all of these were online purchases so they were well-documented. Wahoo! I suggested we consider our trip to Germany a research trip for the Sacred Destinations site (there were lots of cathedrals and Roman museums involved, after all), but David didn't want to go quite that far! Bummer. :)
So, where we thought we were planning to have to pay a thousand bucks or more, it looks like we are actually getting a refund of a few hundred dollars. Yay! I've just made a huge payment on my highest-interest credit card with the money I was saving for Uncle Sam. It's no Euro Millions win, but it's a stroke of financial luck we're very grateful for!
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