Taxes

Could I possibly fuck up my taxes more? Yes, apparently, I could. This was the first year I freelanced all year, so I didn't have an employer or anything like that. I'm an independent contractor. Apparently that also means I'm a business, which means I also pay small business taxes. Fuck. Missed that memo.

So I owe taxes because despite being dirt poor, I'm a dirt poor business, not a dirt poor person. Isn't that neat? I suppose you can legally refer to me as "that" now instead of "who." I know you're thrilled.

I'm the most responsible person ever. I'm so responsible I feel guilty for not being responsible for other people's responsibilities and for things out of my control. Yes, this is psychologically incorrect. So is your face. Anyway, as soon as I realized I owed a bunch of money and couldn't pay, I set up a responsible payment plan that I can afford and set it to automatically withdraw so I will never forget and anger the IRS. The first payment was supposed to come out on August 1.

Well, today is August 22. The payment hasn't come out. Not only was this the first payment, but it was also the setup fee. So that's a little important. I have the letter saying it's all set up, but I also don't want to default on the payment plan loan and get stuck having to pay it all at once. Because I can't do that, so I assume then the IRS would confiscate everything I own to pay my debt. And I really like that couch.

I went online to try to pay on the IRS website where I set up the payment plan. That thing is fucking confusing. I couldn't even figure out where to go if I had already set up the payment plan. When I finally figured that out, they kept asking me for a four-digit PIN. The only PIN I have is six digits. Awesome. But when I tried to request a PIN, the form wouldn't submit and instead just cleared all my info every time. Great. That left only one option: I had to call them. On the phone.

The IRS warned me of hold times in excess of 30 minutes, which is a neat way to begin your Monday morning. Know what's an even neater way? Having all your worldly possession confiscated. So I sat on hold. To be fair, it was more like 25 minutes. How exciting is that? Then Mr. Phillips, reference number 1000145689 or something like that, picked up, and we proceeded to chat about what the fuck happened to my payment. Apparently I should have received a letter that I didn't receive double-confirming the payment plan and doing some other stuff like giving me this PIN everyone keeps asking for that I don't have. Kickass. I love it when I don't have things because someone else screwed up and not because I lost them. That makes it totally not my fault.

I know a thing or two about how to fuck over someone's credit rating, which means I also knew I had another nine days before I'd default on my loan and cause all sorts of crazy shit or something. Probably the apocalypse. Or at least they'd take my couch. Whatever the case, I calmly made the payment, and it allegedly even came out of my account this time. I'm still not convinced that means it went into my IRS account, but there's absolutely no fucking way to check this. Isn't that cool? So it's like a mystery every month if they got your payment the month before. I love mysteries!

The moral of this story is this: if it can go wrong, it will go wrong for me. The other moral is this: don't fuck with me. Seriously. Because you might think you can pull that sneaky bullshit where I get fucked over, but guess what. You probably can't. Or maybe you can. I don't know. I guess it depends on the situation.