Tax Day Blues

What a nasty surprise. For the first time in my life I ended up owing the government a substantial--at least for me--tax bill. In addition to what I have taken out of my salary, I ended up owning over $2,800 to Uncle Sam. Ouch.

And what makes it worse to my mind is that the extra tax is due on money I don't have. Stock market stuff, you see. I had some tidy gains early last year then the tide turned and those gains evaporated away.

I started my portfolio with $8k, saw it rapidly increase to $20k (thus the $3k tax bill instead of the usual $3k tax refund), but then it returned back to earth--dammit--and now all I have is a so-so 30% increase from my initial investment.

This tax year I'll be able to deduct my losses but that won't help on the taxes since you can only use stock market losses to offset stock market gains, not salary. This might just teach me to pick some good quality stocks and stick with them, and not to play around with fly-by-night companies. Ha! Not likely. I like bio-tech stocks way too much.

Comments

srp said…
Don't you wish you had bought Apple stock back just before Steve Jobs came back to the company? Just before iPods.... when the stock was $11 a share? Always the "what if's"!
10:58 AM
Unknown said…
OUCH! Sorry about that - at least you got them filed on time ;)
10:59 AM
kenju said…
Too bad! Those are the downsides to having stock. We got rid of all of ours - fewer headaches!
12:53 PM
Anonymous said…
oh man that bites! I know several people that had to pay in this year...
1:30 PM
rosemary said…
Worry on the other side....we are getting a substantial refund...makes me nervous...we have been audited many times in the past. No issues with those audits ever, but still.....
1:37 PM
Anonymous said…
The good part of having a really bad year is that my taxes were uncomplicated. Since I made almost nothing, what little I paid to the IRS is being refunded along with part of my state taxes. I'm going to pay the gas bill once it clears. Better than having to pay though!
4:26 PM
Evil Twin's Wife said…
I loathe taxes with a purple passion - and we've never owed (knock on wood). The whole thing just makes me angry! Sorry you owed... blech!
1:46 PM
Deana said…
Tax day is a black day at our house. With no kids it just sickens me to think how much we pay. And it wouldn't be so bad if I thought it went to America's needs and not Iraq! One of the reasons I left full time work was because adding me to Martin's salary just ended up in such a high tax that I wasn't making enough to be worth spending all that time away from home, especially when you added in the drive and the clothes. I left making 65k a year because I was probably only coming home with about 20k. And for that 20 our life is much better with me working from home.
1:16 PM
David Edward said…
God giveth and the Govt taketh away...
10:33 AM
SassyAssy said…
Ya'know....you probably should let someone who does that for a living look at it....there are soooo many credits available that people just don't know about and those silly programs don't flag them. Just a thought dear!
11:18 AM
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