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11 months ago
Happy winter solstice superstition to you and all of yours. I hope you're all having a great time. I'm sure many of you are looking forward to my commissions opening in two weeks, and to those that intend to get one you'll need to be aware of some policy changes. In short, my prices are going up. The reason is deeply unpleasant and it may affect a lot of you out there.
Recently I learned that I have not been paying my taxes correctly. This has cost me a lot. Pretty much everything I managed to save over the last few years has been wiped out to cover back taxes and penalties. We're talking five digits. In addition to this forest-fire-level hit to my savings, paying my taxes correctly from this point on will make it extremely difficult to recover. Apparently, United States tax law is written so that a person in my position shoulders an absolutely appalling tax burden. I am treated as a business owner, however I lack any of the write-offs a real business would get. Now, stacking the quite large quarterly payments I must make on top of my living expenses (which also seem to climb constantly) I can barely get by on what I've been making in a month, on average.
The action I must take is one I deeply regret. I have enjoyed offering low prices and arbitrary discounts. I don't wan to make money; I want to make art. However, I can no longer give such low prices and I certainly can't hand out those discounts anymore. To those who might change their mind about commissioning me in light of the increase, I am deeply sorry. I never wanted to be unattainable.
What follows is the really important part. It has come to my attention that not only have I been doing taxes wrong, so are a lot of you. In trying to learn how to do it right, I have not encountered any furries who know how it works any better than I did. It seems troublingly likely that a bunch of artists out there are in the same trouble as me, and they don't even know it. If art is your sole source of income, you need to be making estimated tax payments four times a year. The penalties are utterly loathsome. They increase EVERY SINGLE DAY after you miss a payment. If you were supposed to make these payments going back years, like I was, that's a LOT of fucking interest. If you think this applies to you, amend your tax returns now. January is the time to clear it up. The longer you wait, the worse it gets.
I know a lot of you cheat your taxes on purpose. ("Friends and Family" my ass...) This message isn't really for you. I'm hoping to spread this knowledge to those who are in deep shit and unaware. Tell everyone to look up Quarterly Estimated Taxes. Read about it on the IRS website. I have disabled the comments on this post because I don't want anybody filling the comment section with misinformation about U.S. tax law. Please trust me that this is true. I paid a lot of money to a tax advisor to get this sorted out and it was explained to me in graphic detail. This is real.
Anyway, sorry for the crappy tidings. In a world where everything keeps getting more expensive for no good reason, the last thing I want to do is be part of that problem. This world, though, makes me do a lot of things I don't want to do. We'll go on having a good time anyway.
Wishing you all again the best of the calorically dense season, I remain,
Grotesquely yours,
Goose
Recently I learned that I have not been paying my taxes correctly. This has cost me a lot. Pretty much everything I managed to save over the last few years has been wiped out to cover back taxes and penalties. We're talking five digits. In addition to this forest-fire-level hit to my savings, paying my taxes correctly from this point on will make it extremely difficult to recover. Apparently, United States tax law is written so that a person in my position shoulders an absolutely appalling tax burden. I am treated as a business owner, however I lack any of the write-offs a real business would get. Now, stacking the quite large quarterly payments I must make on top of my living expenses (which also seem to climb constantly) I can barely get by on what I've been making in a month, on average.
The action I must take is one I deeply regret. I have enjoyed offering low prices and arbitrary discounts. I don't wan to make money; I want to make art. However, I can no longer give such low prices and I certainly can't hand out those discounts anymore. To those who might change their mind about commissioning me in light of the increase, I am deeply sorry. I never wanted to be unattainable.
What follows is the really important part. It has come to my attention that not only have I been doing taxes wrong, so are a lot of you. In trying to learn how to do it right, I have not encountered any furries who know how it works any better than I did. It seems troublingly likely that a bunch of artists out there are in the same trouble as me, and they don't even know it. If art is your sole source of income, you need to be making estimated tax payments four times a year. The penalties are utterly loathsome. They increase EVERY SINGLE DAY after you miss a payment. If you were supposed to make these payments going back years, like I was, that's a LOT of fucking interest. If you think this applies to you, amend your tax returns now. January is the time to clear it up. The longer you wait, the worse it gets.
I know a lot of you cheat your taxes on purpose. ("Friends and Family" my ass...) This message isn't really for you. I'm hoping to spread this knowledge to those who are in deep shit and unaware. Tell everyone to look up Quarterly Estimated Taxes. Read about it on the IRS website. I have disabled the comments on this post because I don't want anybody filling the comment section with misinformation about U.S. tax law. Please trust me that this is true. I paid a lot of money to a tax advisor to get this sorted out and it was explained to me in graphic detail. This is real.
Anyway, sorry for the crappy tidings. In a world where everything keeps getting more expensive for no good reason, the last thing I want to do is be part of that problem. This world, though, makes me do a lot of things I don't want to do. We'll go on having a good time anyway.
Wishing you all again the best of the calorically dense season, I remain,
Grotesquely yours,
Goose
Comment posting has been disabled by the journal owner.
