Unexpected Twists and Turns

Don’t you hate it when there are unexpected twists and turns in your life that throw you for a loop? How do you handle them? This is what happened to us recently, when we got our taxes done, with a bit of background.

We own a cleaning business, which doesn’t show much of a profit because we have employees and other expenses that bring the income from the business quite low. We also, both, work at a  retail/grocery store and get better than normal wages.

In the past I was able to claim both our daughters for the credit related to having kids, I don’t remember the accurate name for that. This year, 2012, I have a daughter that turned 24 during the latter part of the year so I knew I wouldn’t be able to claim her any longer. I thought, though, that I’d still be able to claim my younger daughter.

I think what threw me off was because law were changed for coverage for insurance plans. Now, children can be covered until they turn 26 whether they live with you or not or whether they are in school full-time or not.  This is not the same rule for the child care credit.

My younger daughter did not attend college for a minimum of five months this year, so we are not able to claim her as a dependent at all even though we pay most of her support.

Therefore, instead of getting the three to four thousand dollars we were counting on to help make it through the rest of the winter, since we do not clean many windows in the winter in Michigan, we are getting just under five hundred dollars.

Part of that is my own fault in another way also. I changed my withholding for the year because I opted for a high-deductible health plan which was more expensive monthly than I anticipated. This year even though I made about the same amount as last year, just a bit more than half of the amount from the year before was held from our federal income tax.

This awful news almost made me depressed. I about wanted to cry on someone’s shoulder. I’d like to say that after talking to my husband, I gathered with God and Jesus Christ to let them commiserate with me; but, to be honest, it took me two days after hearing the news to do that.

If you want to hear a bit about how to allow God to help you rise above these situations, and we all have to deal with them in our lives some more than others, feel free to check out one of my other blogs, (muchadoaboutbiblicaltruths.wordpress.com

 

Taxes Are Done, Finally!!

I got our taxes done, finally and what a relief that is. Generally, I’m working on them the first few months of the year, but don’t get them completed until March or April. By then I sometimes have to borrow money from my sisters until any money we’re getting back shows up. This year I decided to be different, especially since I’m tired of borrowing money. I decided to do the taxes early. Still a tad stressful to find all the necessary paperwork as I’m usually behind on getting our business book work completed.

Next year I hope to recruit my husband into putting the information into the computer every few days so that once December comes it won’t take as much work to finalize the process. That will also enable me to stay on top of other aspects of running the business and taking care of our household.

Related articles

• What Are Itemized Tax Deductions? (turbotax.intuit.com)
• 5 Reasons Why You Should Love Your 401(k) (divacfo.com)