Guest Post from Vanessa Lang: Tax Deductions for Freelancers
January 31, 2012 by Lillie
As a freelancer, it is very important to pay close attention to all of your tax information. If you aren’t careful, you could easily get audited. You should know by now that you will need to report absolutely every form of income you have received, but you may not know that there are quite a few tax deductions you are entitled to as well. The following are just a few of the many tax deductions you may be able to use as a freelancer.
- Books, periodicals, DVD’s, and other materials used for research
- Any type of entertainment directly related to your research or writing (golfing for a golf piece, seeing a movie to review it, etc.)
- Magazine subscriptions
- Blog expenses
- Memberships to clubs and affiliations related to your business
- Internet access fees
- Equipment (digital camera, web camera, computer, flash drives, printer and ink, other computer equipment, etc.)
- Office supplies (paper, pens, paperclips, etc.)
- Office furniture (To be used only for business)
- Business phone line used just for business (Always remember to keep your business and personal expenses separate.)
- Computer software (for your business and for your taxes/accounting)
- Business cards and other stationery
- Home office expenses (Deduct a part of your rent or home payment for your home office. Also, include water, insurance, heating bills, etc. in the deduction.)
- Advertising costs
- Travel and hotel expenses on business trips
- Health insurance if you are self-employed
- PayPal fees
- Annual fees on a business credit card (Yet another way to keep your business and personal expenses separate. Just make sure you are using this card only for business expenses.)
- Business mentor (Some of these services are paid and some are not. If they do require a fee, you can deduct it.)
- Clothing (You can’t deduct everything, but if you need to make sure you look nice for a client, you can deduct the cost of a nice suit or dress. Just don’t try to buy something really expensive and unnecessary expecting to deduct the cost later.)
- Donations to a charity or other charity work (This one can be tricky, so make sure you check out the rules before you deduct.)
While all of these deductions may seem great, it is very important that you don’t try to abuse the system. You should always assume that the IRS already knows everything about you, so you should never report something that shouldn’t be reported. For example, you should not try to report a Rolex watch because you want to impress your clients. This is not necessary and could cause suspicion with the IRS. You should also make sure to disclose all of the information that you are supposed to disclose. In order to do this, you will need to keep all of your receipts handy and organized to prove the necessity of these deductions.
About the Author
Vanessa Lang is an author who writes guest posts on the topics of business, marketing, credit cards, and personal finance. Additionally, she works for a website that focuses on educating readers about factors to consider before getting a payday loan.
National School Choice Week: Freedom Always Works
January 27, 2012 by Lillie
A good education is critical for a child’s future success, but too many children are trapped in low-performing schools with discipline problems and failing students. Parents should have the freedom to choose the school that is best for their children. January 22-28, 2012 is National School Choice Week, “shining a spotlight on effective education options for every child.”
A Tale of Two Missions with Juan Williams dramatically demonstrates that when it comes to education, freedom always works.
Now Choose Life, so That You and Your Children May Live
January 22, 2012 by Lillie
This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. ~ Deuteronomy 30:19-20 (NIV)
On January 22, 1973, the Supreme Court chose death and made abortion legal in the United States.
Since that day, nearly 55 million children created by God in His image have been murdered before ever being given a chance at life.
This joyous story of a reunion of a birth mother with her daughter conceived in rape and given up for adoption is unlikely to happen today. Children conceived in rape are routinely aborted, as if the children should be punished for the crimes of their fathers.
Added 1/23/12: I learned about a pro-life advocate who herself was conceived in rape. Rebecca Kiessling has a dramatic story to tell that changes hearts and minds about exceptions to abortion.
Through the years, I have written a number of posts about abortion and the sanctity of life, especially on the anniversary of the Supreme Court decision that made the lives of unborn children less valuable under the law than the convenience of their mothers. Here are links to some of them:
- Absolute Truth vs Personal Opinion
- Abortion: Legalized Murder
- A Thirty-Six Year Tragedy
- The Most Basic Human Right: Life
- Slavery and Abortion – Moral Relatives
- The Case Against Abortion
O Lord Jesus Christ, who dost embrace children with the arms of thy mercy, and dost make them living members of thy Church; protect unborn children from being murdered in the womb; turn the hearts of lawmakers and people to end the evil abomination of abortion; and allow every child created by thee to fulfill thy plan for their life; through thy merits, O merciful Saviour, who with the Father and the Holy Ghost livest and reignest one God, world without end. Amen. (adapted from the 1928 Book of Common Prayer
photo credit: Caitlinator
Twenty years ago today …
January 22, 2012 by Lillie
… I walked into the chiropractor’s office at the end of a long and busy day. My head throbbed from one of my frequent migraines, and I was hoping for relief. The chiropractor directed me to sit on a stool, then he took my head in his hands and twisted. Instantly, I felt like I was hanging upside down from the ceiling. The world was spinning below me, and I was hot and cold at the same time.
The chiropractor told me to step over to the table in front of me. He helped me up, but I just fell face-down on the table.
“My body is heavy,” I said. “I can’t turn over.” Of course my body was heavy. I had always been overweight, but that wasn’t what I was feeling. I just didn’t know how to describe the sensation, but I knew I couldn’t move.
The chiropractor helped me get all the way onto the table, then he started massaging the back of my neck with an electric instrument. I started throwing up over and over and over again. I begged him for help, but he ignored me.
He said, “You have a bad case of the flu. I’m going to call your husband to come get you. I don’t think it’s safe for you to drive.”
“Not safe?” I screamed. “I can’t even move, much less drive.”
He just walked away and reached for the telephone.
For the rest of the story, read My Stroke: The Beginning. That post links to two others continuing the story of my stroke. Through the years I have written a number of posts on stroke, including risk factors and symptoms.
Now, twenty years later, I still have what doctors call “deficits” as a result of the stroke, but the good that has come from it has far outweighed the bad.
My wonderful loving husband cared for me throughout my recovery, but he always pushed me to do as much as I could on my own. His faith that I would recover, his confidence in my abilities, and his constant support meant more than I can say. We are closer and more in love today than ever.
I learned valuable lessons from the limits imposed by the stroke. I realized that what I can do is far more important than what I can’t do, and that I can do far more than I imagined.
As a result of the stroke, I finally realized my dream of becoming a full-time writer. I always planned to write “someday,” but after the stroke I decided “someday” is today.
If you had told me twenty years ago when I stepped through the door of the chiropractor’s office that I would be carried out after having a stroke, I would have turned around and run the other direction. But today, I know that I am a stronger person and I am living my dream with my soulmate because of the experiences I have gone through.
Religious Freedom Day 2012
January 16, 2012 by Lillie
Religious Freedom Day is observed on January 16th, which is the anniversary of the passage of the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom in 1786. That statute, drafted by Thomas Jefferson, was the basis for the First Amendment to the Constitution.
We are so blessed to have freedom of religion in this country. In many parts of the world, people do not have the right to worship as they choose. Christian pastor Youcef Nedarkhani is facing execution in Iran because he was raised in a Muslim home and converted to Christianity. In the United States, we can be raised in a Muslim home and convert to Christianity or raised in a Christian home and convert to Islam. In matters of faith, we answer only to our God, not to our country or to anyone else.
MOST gracious God who gives us more than we deserve, we yield thee unfeigned thanks and praise for the freedom to worship thee without fear and for all the other blessings of thy merciful providence bestowed upon this nation and people. And, we beseech thee, show thy mercy upon thy servants who live where they lack the same freedom; give them strength to stand fast in their faith in the face of adversity; protect them and give them thy peace that passes understanding; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with thee and the Holy Ghost, be all glory and honour, world without end. Amen.
Thanks to December 2011 Commenters
January 13, 2012 by Lillie
Thank you to the 63 commenters who left 116 comments in December. Your comments extended the conversation and added value and interest, and I enjoyed replying to every one of them.
Every month when I post thanks to commenters, I get questions about how I compile this list. I have explained my system in detail in Compiling Thanks to Commenters.
National Human Trafficking Awareness Day
January 11, 2012 by Lillie
Didn’t Abraham Lincoln end slavery 149 years ago with the Emancipation Proclamation?
Fortunately for slaves on Southern plantations, yes. Unfortunately for many other slaves around the world, no.
According to the Alliance to End Slavery and Trafficking (ATEST):
There are more slaves in the world today than at any point in history. Slavery is more affordable, more wide-spread, and more entrenched in 2011 than it was in ancient Rome or the antebellum South of America. Modern-day slaves, also called human trafficking victims, can be male or female, from any country, or representing any ethnicity. They can be enslaved in any industry, although common industries include domestic servitude, agriculture, the commercial sex industry, factories, and the service industry. Human trafficking is truly a global crime.
Today, January 11th, is National Human Trafficking Awareness Day. Most of us believe that if we had lived during the days of slavery before the Civil War that we would have stood against it. Now there are more slaves than ever in history, and we all need to realize the magnitude of this problem and make our voices heard to bring an end to it.
Love 146, an organization to end sex slavery and exploitation, has posted quotes from the nineteenth century regarding slavery for the past several days. I recommend you begin with the first post and read them all. Then ask yourself if you feel compelled to help the cause of ending slavery of all kinds around the world.
Interview: Christian Author Molly Noble Bull
January 10, 2012 by Lillie
My guest today is multi-published author Molly Noble Bull. Although I have not seen Molly in quite a while, we got to know each other through the San Antonio chapter of the Romance Writers of America. Later, Molly started an email loop of Christian women authors and invited me to join. The fellowship with other Christian authors was a real blessing for years.
Lillie: Welcome to A Writer’s Words, An Editor’s Eye, Molly. Let’s begin with a little about you, including how your Christian faith has impacted your writing.
Molly: I have commitment to marriage and family, and I love children. Before I wrote articles, stories and books to sell, I was an elementary and early childhood teacher. Therefore, my Christian faith inspired everything I have written since the nineteen eighties. The following words are written on the dedication page of every one of my novels—“But to God give the glory.” These words are also posted on the dedication of my first non-fiction book—The Overcomers: Christian Authors Who Conquered Learning Disabilities by Ginny Aiken, Margaret Daley, Jane Myers Perrine, Ruth Scofield and me, Molly Noble Bull.
Lillie: Please tell us about the books you have written before this latest collaboration with other authors.
Molly: I first published two novels with Zondervan way back in the late nineteen eighties. These titles were For Always and The Rogue’s Daughter. The novels were reprinted and came out from the book division of Guide Posts as Promise Romances.
More recently, I published with Love Inspired. The titles are Brides and Blessings and The Winter Pearl, and both are now available as e-books.
Tsaba House published Sanctuary, and it won two awards in the inspirational category for published authors in 2008—the Gayle Wilson award and the Winter Rose contest. Tsaba House purchased five more of my books. However, the company went out of business before any of them came out.
Lillie: Where can readers learn more about you and your books?
Molly: Go to Amazon and write Molly Noble Bull in the search slot. This will take you to my page at Amazon where all my books are listed. The Overcomers: Christian Authors Who Conquered Learning Disabilities is my newest book, and you can’t miss it. It’s the book with the yellow cover.
Lillie: The Overcomers: Christian Authors Who Conquered Learning Disabilities was recently released. You wrote the book along with several other Christian authors. Share with my readers something about your collaborators.
Molly: I am dyslexic, and I met the other four ladies who authored The Overcomers on a loop for Love Inspired authors. All five of us suffer/suffered with learning disabilities, and it was such a blessing to get to know them and realize that I was not the only published author in the world who had a hard time learning to read and spell.
Lillie: How did this book come about—who had the original idea, what writing process did you use, how did you find a publisher?
Molly: After we discovered that we all suffered from similar problems, we decided to write a book together to encourage others. Back in 2007, a small Christian book publisher bought the book, but it never came out because the publisher went out of business. We sat on it for a while. Then in 2011, we decided to self-publish the book via Westbow Press. It came out in paperback and as an e-book in December 2011.
Lillie: What is the main thing you want readers to take away from reading The Overcomers?
Molly: Learning Disabilities don’t go away—at least at this point in time. One simply learns to go around them. Cope. Triumphing over learning problems like the ones mentioned in The Overcomers: Christian Authors Who Conquered Learning Disabilities is not easy. It takes determination, work, and a lot of patience, but it can be done.
I want my readers to know that according to Ron Davis, who wrote The Gift of Dyslexia, talents and abilities of all kinds are often hidden behind labels like dyslexia and learning disabilities. The only real danger is giving up. All five of us overcame and are now published novelists. Others can do the same.
Lillie: Is there anything I’ve failed to ask that you would like to share with my readers?
Molly: I would like to invite readers to visit my website and blog.
Click here to go to the author page for Molly Noble Bull at Amazon.com right now.
Also, to find my books online or in a walk-in bookstores, ask for books by Molly Noble Bull. My title, The Overcomers, is not unique. Other books written by others authors share that title. So ask for the book’s complete title—The Overcomers: Christian Authors Who Conquered Learning Disabilities.
Lillie: Thank you so much for stopping by and sharing about your books and the new book, The Overcomers. Readers will probably have more questions for you. Will you check in during the day to respond to comments and answer questions?
Molly: You bet. And thanks again, Lillie, for inviting me here.
Lillie: If you have questions for Molly, leave a comment below.
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I was born in Kingsville, Texas, and since I talked early, my parents expected great things from me. It must have been a huge disappointment to discover that I couldn’t learn to read and spell as other children my age did. But with God’s help, I learned.
I am still married to my college sweetheart, and we have three grown sons and six grandchildren. God is good.
The Epiphany of Our Lord
January 6, 2012 by Lillie
The Epiphany, or the Manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles, comes at the end of the Twelve Days of Christmas. Although people sometimes think the Twelve Days of Christmas come before Christmas Day, they really occur after Christmas and lead up to Epiphany, which commemorates the visit of the Magi from the East to the Christ Child. These Wise Men followed a star that led them to Jesus. They were the first Gentiles (non-Jews) to worship Christ.
O GOD, who by the leading of a star didst manifest thy only-begotten Son to the Gentiles; Mercifully grant that we, who know thee now by faith, may after this life have the fruition of thy glorious Godhead; through the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. ~ Collect for Epiphany, 1928 Book of Common Prayer
photo credit: Wonderlane
Happy 79th Birthday to Jack
January 3, 2012 by Lillie
Jack Established 1933
Today is my husband Jack’s 79th birthday. This picture was taken at his 76th birthday party, and he still looks the same. He has a few health problems and has slowed down some, but he’s still just as fun-loving as ever with a fantastic sense of humor.
Sometimes he remembers things from the distant past more readily than current events. We spend a lot of time just sitting on the front porch talking. He enjoys telling stories of favorite things that have happened in his life.
He was the highest paid engineer in his graduating class from Texas A&M—by $1.67 a month. In 1960, he made a whopping $551.67 per month! He had interviewed with three companies and been offered a job by all of them. He chose Frigidaire Division of General Motors in Dayton, Ohio.
On one occasion, his crew was supposed to make the sides and backs of a particular model of refrigerator. After the whole job was finished, the quality control engineer, who had approved the line setup, discovered that they made the wrong model. Jack’s boss told him to discard the wrong ones since all the refrigerators for that model year had been made. However, Jack couldn’t stand to throw something away when it might be used. (He’s still that way, making him something of a hoarder.) He had his forklift operator move a bunch of material in the storage area out, put the sides and backs at the very back of the storage area, then put the other material in front of them. A couple of weeks later, an order came through to make sides and backs for the Canadian manufacturing plant—the same model that had been made in error! Jack had the forklift operator move the parts from the storage area to the train siding, then called his boss and said, “We’ve finished that order. What do you want us to do for the rest of the shift?” That fast turnaround gave his department the highest efficiency rating in all of General Motors—all because he couldn’t stand to let something go to waste!
Jack also earned another distinction at General Motors—he was responsible for the firing of the only union employee to be fired in a long period of time. The employee accosted Jack one day complaining about something, and in their encounter, the employee grabbed Jack’s tie and pulled Jack toward him. Although management was hesitant to take on the union to fire one of its members, everyone agreed that was an assault that couldn’t be tolerated. Jack went through the lengthy process, until finally one day, three burly armed security guards showed up at the assembly line and escorted the employee outside the plant with orders never to return.
Although he really liked his job and his bosses really liked him, Jack finally decided that “you can take the boy out of Texas, but you can’t the Texas out of the boy.” He took a job at Kelly Air Force Base in San Antonio and moved back to Texas.
A couple of years after Jack went to work at Kelly, I got a summer job in his office. Jack often says—and I agree completely—that divine intervention led him to move from Ohio to Texas!
Another fond memory Jack loves to talk about is his proposal, if you can call it that. We were sitting on the couch in his living room (in the house we still live in today), and I was telling him of my future plans for my last year of college and after graduation. He looked at me and said, “When are you going to marry me?” I responded, “When are you going to ask me?” He said, “I’m asking,” and, obviously, I answered, “Yes!”
At first, my father didn’t approve. Jack was nearly fourteen years older than I was, and he had been divorced. Worst of all, he was a city slicker, and my father was convinced he was going to take advantage of this little country hick. However, it didn’t take long for Daddy to come to love Jack like a son. Mama had loved him from the first time she met him.
I returned to Georgetown, Texas for my final year at Southwestern University. Because of advanced placement in several courses and taking 20 hours per semester, I lacked only one course to graduate after three years. We were married on May 31, 1967, a few days after I finished school. That summer I attended a local community college and took the first and second semesters of American history simultaneously, but I had to wait until the following spring to graduate as Southwestern had only one graduation each year.
We’ve been married for more than 44 years and are more in love than ever.
Happy birthday, Jack!
