The weekend of Thanksgiving 2005, during all the online sales, I decided that if I’m going to buy a laptop, I might as well do it now, so that I could claim it for my 2005 taxes. I tell you, it and my ipod have changed my life. These diary entries are so much easier with my laptop.
I was able to throw together my taxes much easier this year, because I could take my laptop with me wherever I went – to work, on trips, into the family room – and punch in all my receipts and throw all the numbers together whenever I had a spare moment here and there.
If I’m at work, and I get a break, I can work on scripts, or diary entries, or whatever. I’m loving having a laptop. How did I do without it for so long?
2005, thanks to a great big royalties check for Ojo – and I mean HUGE! – I made twice as much money as the year before. I also claimed about half as many losses. But we punched in our numbers and found we were still due another huge write-off. The same amount as the year before. It turns out Elizabeth had gotten a raise, working for the state, and I guess that bumped her into a new tax bracket or something, and they took more out for her. Even though I personally owed more taxes and wrote off less, we’re due back the same amount.
Last year I was a little nervous about an audit, because I lost so much money with my comics-creating business. But I felt all my claims were legitimate, even though they were huge. Now, this year, I was beginning to really sweat. Not only because I’m nervous about an audit. Not only because I’ve claimed stupidly large losses for the last two years, thanks to an impossible industry you can’t hope to make a living at. But because I realized that if I don’t start making a profit next year (2006), it may be hard to justify that I’m trying to do this as a living, and that it’s not a hobby. The tax rules state that a business needs to make a profit three out of five years. This is my second year of not making a profit. If I don’t make a profit next year, I can’t make a profit three out of five. If the IRS feels strongly, they will be sure to call me on it, and not let me claim all my printing, advertising, convention costs, let alone all my comics, DVD, and book purchases.
And next year, I don’t have any books lined up with Sam Kieth, to make me five times what I make on my own books. And in fact, I can’t imagine publishing more than two books this year. I’ll pop out a trade of my Doris Danger stories, and I’ll collect the Lump into a trade, but by the time I finish those, the year will be over. I’m beginning to worry I could be screwed.
So, upon filing my 2005 taxes, I’m realizing this may be my final year to tell the IRS I’m a “Comics artist.” They may say, Look, punk, you don’t make any money. You can’t be a “Comics artist” anymore.