self_employment_and_taxes.txt

How did the recording session go yesterday? I forgot to ask you about your
health, you were looking tired and weak the time before that I saw you. Did you
make an appointment with a general practice doctor, e.g. Katy's doctor, Ms.
Wang?

Saw Carousel musical yesterday. It was even better the sedond time I saw it,
Saw and heard a few things that I missed when attending the show last week.

Subject: Self-Employed and Taxes. I just wanted to mention, now that you are
self-employed, I assume you have all the business licenses required (State and
City, you obviously will not be receiving a W2 form from an employer indicating
your earnings and income tax amount withheld. Therefore, you should create a
system that you can monthly at least (otherwise it is easy to forget items),
tally your income and sources of these incomes and your related work expenses
to determining your net taxable income for filing your U.S. income tax
statement for 2015. You probably can get away with filing the one annual tax
report for 2015, but in the future, IRS will probably request that you fill out
a quarterly income tax report because you do not have withholding taxes paid
with each pay day like you did as an employee. 

Your Mom avoids having to complete a quarterly tax report because of me and my
income whereby I had requested additional income tax to be withheld on my pay
checks when I was working and similarly on my pension checks now that I am
retired, so that at our joint tax filing, the government always owes us a
refund because I have always paid them too much, thus, avoiding quarterly tax
reports. This you are not able to do. 

I also suggest you talk to your Mom about the system she developed and uses for
recording her monthly income from various students and institutes and her
business expenses for deductions. I have her monthly summaries for 2014 that I
will use in preparing our 2014 income tax forms that you can look at. Expenses,
e.g., business license cost, travel costs (car, plane, etc.), office material
(paper, etc.) equipment for depreciation and/or total expensing out (computer,
printer, etc), internet costs; home office space cost (prorated footage vs.
your home rent, electricity, heating, trash pickup) etc. etc.

Your music activity could be a separate business with its income and expenses,
probably initially a losing proposition when you factor recording costs,
instrument repairs and maintenance, depreciation, etc. vs. income. Perhaps, the
two business forms Schedule C 1040 could be filed together as one package?

Dad