Income Tax
Somewhere in Ohio, there is an office manager who is as sweet as she can be. Unless you cross her. Then you will find she means business.
She is an older lady, dressed well, with a bright crimson shade of lipstick. There is a lot of it. Some is on her teeth, as well as her lips.
Her hair is not exactly tousled nor shabby-chic, but more like category-three tropical storm. She manages the minutia of the office at the company where you are starting to work.
Right now she is watching you fill out your W-4 form that explains whether you are married, and how many kids you have. She is watching you carefully for two reasons.
One is she wants to be the first in the company to know all about you for general conversational purposes.
The second is so that she can pounce on you if she even gets the impression you are about to do something incorrectly. She controls the game at this point. Offense and defense.
The form you are completing both authorizes the company to sock away part of your hard-earned money for a short period, and lets them, know how much to sock away.
Once a year, you will be issued another form called a W-2 in lieu of said amount of money. This is sometimes referred to as the regular worker’s economy.
There also exists the side gig economy, or the side hustle/side job/independent contractor economy, where your employer is, in essence, your customer, and they don’t hold back part of your pay.
This economy is more the honor system, but with guard rails, where if one of your customers pays you a lot of money, they give you a 1099 form showing how much they paid you the previous year, But that is to let them get credit for paying you. It’s up to you to keep track of your totals and pay your taxes out of your money, not money that’s been saved up for you. Yes, it is confusing.
Join us for a free book to help you, if you want to begin making money writing…
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This side-hustle economy may not be for everyone. But for some of us eat-what-we-kill workers it’s just part of our complicated life.
As we look at side hustles here, just remember, being under a few radars doesn’t excuse you from the law. So its not all sunshine and unicorns.
Ad some side hustles are hybrids when it comes to actually receiving the money you earn.
As we investigate various ways to augment our incomes when we become less able or even just less willing to have employment by the old definition, we will try to remember all good sides carry an “other” side.
Thanks,
-don
Above is an artsy photo of my mobility-aid named Johnny Walker Blue, a delightful, metallic blue number from Walgreen’s.
Framed by JWB, is a basket of my toys, and pieces of my wheelchair which had been in a dreadful, head-on collision down in Brentwood. The chair itself is in the body shop, and the whole thing is tied up in litigation. (You might have known, here’s a song.)
If you see me hitch-hiking on I-65, please give me a ride. My mental health is much, much better.
