Gentle cabrones:

Did you do your taxes yet? I did!

I wish I could do them on January 1 like Ned Flanders, but my taxes are complicated. My honey has her own business and her own personal taxes, while I have a full-time job, two part-time ones by teaching at Chapman and OCC, and freelance gigs with Alta Journal, KCRW and National Catholic Reporter, so my W-2s and 1099s are as jumbled as the inside of a Corn Popper toy.

Remember the days when you could hand over your W-2 to your parents so their tax person could do it? I do!

But ever since 2007 — when I got my advance for my first two books — I’ve had to hire someone to do my taxes. Recommended to me by my lawyer (yes, even back then I had a lawyer). Great run — I’ve seen my tax guy’s business get big enough to the point that he was able to move from a desk at a strip mall to an office in a two-story building, and gets to pick who he takes in, and his son is also in the firm. Dodgers fan. Beatles fan. Great laugh!

Cautious as hell, because that’s what you need with these kind of things.

Because I’m a student above all, I’ve learned a lot about the freelancer tax code over the past 18 years. And because I try to teach, behold my tax tips. These apply mostly to people who make most of their money from freelancing and thus get 1099s before tax season, but they can apply to anyone who just has one W-2. I use the italics because…well, you’re about to find out.

Shoutout to Javier Cabral (Canto CLXXXIV), who suggested I do this canto years ago. Do we need to go eat soon and mosh? We do!

Get Someone to Do Your Taxes

Fuck Turbotax, Intuit, and the rando that your parents know, and even fuck YOU. Unless you’re an accountant or CPA, you don’t know about how to do taxes as much as you think you do, so don’t be cheap and get someone — because lo barato, cuesta (Canto CCCLVII). You need someone who has not only studied the tax code but has dealt with it for years. They will tell you what you can and can’t do, what you should and shouldn’t. And they know more than you. GET SOMEONE.

Report All Your Earnings

This seems like an obvious tip, but you would be surprised. If you’re getting 1099s, most companies will only issue one if they pay you $500 or more — that’s the minimum amount that the IRS requires companies to issue a 1099. But the IRS still wants to know if someone paid you less than $500 to do something — and the company that paid you that amount isn’t going to remind you they did because they didn’t have to send out a 1099. If you have a bunch of small checks, they can add up fast — and the IRS wants it, and will be muy mad if you don’t give them their chunk. That’s why…

Keep a Ledger of the Checks that Come In

Every time you get a new gig, write somewhere how much you make from it, even if it’s less than $500. DON’T rely on the 1099s that get issued for tax season. An accountant could’ve made a mistake, like what happened to me one year and…yeah. Or what happens to me every year: my residuals from…something…are so small that the company that issues them don’t bother with a 1099 until I remind them I need one. Thank God I have my ledger so my tax guy isn’t waiting until the absolute end…and even then, he’ll have his total of the 1099s that he has, and the list that I have. My list is always the higher amount. We go with the higher amount.

Don’t Ask for an Extension

The IRS allows for an automatic six-month extension on the filing of your taxes if you ask for it (and all L.A. County residents have a few more months this year because of the Palisades and Eaton fires). BUT…they still want the money you owe them, so filing an extension in light of that never made sense to me. If you’re already expected to have to pay an amount — which means that you’ve already done some of the math — why not just go through all of it? It’s like ordering a burrito and only taking one bite while saving the rest for later. By the time you get around to finishing it, you’re already over it and it’s probably already getting gross but you feel you have to eat it because you don’t want to throw out leftovers — and that’s when problems start.

Or is that just me?

First time reading this newsletter? Subscribe here for more merriment! Feedback, thoughts, commentary, rants? Send them to [email protected]

Save Every Last Receipt to Possibly Expense

When you’re a freelancer, you can write off a lot that you can’t if you have a full-time job because you’re technically self-employed so everything you do in the name of the job is an expense (the expectation is that a full-time job pays all the expenses of their employees. Like we’re all supposed to live and work in the eras of three-martini lunches and executive wash rooms?). Work needed for your computer? Expense. Parking ticket you got while doing your gig work? Expense. Eyeglasses? Not an expense (I asked). New car? To an extent, if you use it to get to and from your gig work. Dry cleaning? Expense (I asked). Work at home? You can declare part of your home to be a home office, because it is.

Google’s going to tell you everything is an expense. Fuck Google. Ask someone who’s heard it all. Donation to a nonprofit for a silent auction where the winning bid got me tickets? NOPE, because goods were exchanged — but nice try, and bless your charitable heart! But when you straight-up give money to a 501c3, that’s an expense — but NOT a 501c4. GET SOMEONE.

Pay Quarterly Estimates

If you only have a full-time job, your taxes and Social Security and all those other withholdings you rarely look at are automatically taken from your check for both federal and state taxes. Absolutely nothing is withheld if you’re a 1099er. That doesn’t mean you don’t owe the government anything — that means YOU get to figure out what you owe. And government wants whatever you owe as fast as possible but has enough of a heart to let folks pay them every quarter.

So how do you know what to pay? Estimates.

It’s quite evil – you basically have to predict how much money you’re gonna make as a freelancer for year, extrapolate a figure, and pay it. Um, ok. The good thing is if you overpay, the government will give you back that money. If you don’t pay them and decide to pay what you owe from your 1099s at tax time? You’re gonna have to pay one giant sum instead of four smaller ones and the IRS will impose a penalty on you for not having paid throughout the year. You don’t want the IRS to ever get perturbed at you for anything unless you’re a believer in colloidal silver.

Set up a Personal Retirement Account

The better companies out there have 401(k) programs or pensions for its workers that match employee contributions up to a point. You won’t get that as a freelancer, but you can set up your own retirement account that you can pay into — and should. Yeah, you won’t be able to touch it until you retire without incurring a penalty and pay taxes on it unless there’s a huge medical expense or you buy a new house — and you can only pull up to $10,000 if you do, and you can only do it once — but you should still do it because it’s your money and it won’t get taxed. If you contribute the max amount (it varies by how much you made in a year, and how do you know what it is? GET SOMEONE), it’ll cut how much you owe in taxes — and it’s your money.

Your tax person never told you about setting one up? Fire them. Now.

Always Apply Any Refund You May Receive to Next Year’s Estimated Taxes

Don’t get tempted by the possibility of receiving that orange-ish check with the Statue of Liberty that signifies a refund and always brings a smile to whoever gets one. Yeah, you need the money — but you’re going to need the money next year, so might as well start paying your taxes the soonest you can. What’s the saying? A penny paid forward is a dime earned or something? Sure!

Any other questions? Ask your tax chica, as I’m not a professional. Next up in a future canto: libel law! Heaven knows I have experience with THAT…

**

Enough rambling. This was the semana that was:

IMAGE OF THE WEEK: AWESOME khao soi at Bangkok Taste, a longtime favorite of mine in SanTana that I hadn’t visited since taking NelCYN years ago. Total revamp, slightly tweaked menu — but same great flavors. Too bad they don’t have the frosted roti anymore, though!

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “There are really only two plays: Romeo and Juliet, and put the damn ball in the basket” — Abe Lemons

LISTENING: “Jam 10 Kai Thiet (Wait 10 More Months),” Ros Sereysothea. When I first heard the album Cambodian Rocks — a compilation of the country’s psychedelic garage rock scene before Khmer Rough — I vowed to one day write a book about the music, so moved I was by the singing, rhythms, and sad fate of the singers. That obviously didn’t happen, but the music remains in my soul — this song by the queen of the scene especially stayed with me, with Sereysothea’s high-pitched pleas, the acid riffs and driving drums. East West Players in L.A. is doing a play on the subject — I need to check it out!

READING: “The Lowest Animal”: I had actually never read this Mark Twain masterpiece until one of my teacher comadres slipped me a copy of one of the assignments she makes her students read. She’s total wokosa yet has her students reading Twain because she’s down like that. Brilliant, hilarious — the Twain I remember from my childhood, although nothing in this essay as caustic as what he said about James Fenimore Cooper and Jane Austen!

Gustavo Events  

April 12, 10 a.m.: “The Cinematic Murals of Gabriel Figueroa”: Oooo, I get to use my film studies sombrero! Going to do a short presentation on the legendary cinematographer, then see with ustedes The Night of the Iguana and then talk with ustedes afterward! At the Riviera Theater, 2044 Alameda Padre Serra, Santa Barbara. $25, and buy your tickets here.

April 16, 5 p.m.: I’ll be giving a lecture titled "What a Californian Mexican with Glasses has Learned from Colorado Latinos" at Colorado College, specifically at Gaylord Hall at the Worner Campus Center, 902 N. Cascade Ave, Colorado Springs. Lecture is FREE — someone bring me a Slopper and suds from Atrevida Beer Co.!

April 23, 7 p.m.: I'll be in conversation about "Covering 25 Years of OC Democratic Party Tomfoolery," a title so scandalous that some bigwig Dems have already complained about it and my presence! Pinche OC Dems are as humorless as Dodgers fans. At St. Paul's Episcopal Church, 1221 Wass St., Tustin. $5.

April 26, 3 p.m.: I’ll be moderating “The Activist Spirit and the Embodiment of Solidarity” at the L.A. Times Festival of Books at Newman Recital Hall at USC. Tickets will be required but not released until April 20, so stay tuned.

April 27, 11:45 am. and 4:15 p.m.: I’ll be moderating two more panels for the L.A. Times Festival of Books: “Voto Latino: Post-Election Reflections” and “Ask a Reporter: How We Cover Immigration.” The former will be at the De Los Stage and accessible to all, the latter will be at Mudd Hall 203 and will require tickets that are not released until April 20, so stay tuned.

May 3, 9 a.m.: Join me and one of my co-authors of A People’s Guide to Orange County as we do a tour of Anacrime! Tickets are $20 but completely worth it — buy here. me

Gustavo in the News

“13 Cartoon Characters That Were Quietly Erased From American TV”: A plug from a long-ago columna of mine.

“MLB: Columnist Suggests How Dodgers can Troll Donald Trump During White House Visit“: Someone plugs a recent columna of mine.

Gustavo Stories 

“Grítale a Guti“: Latest edition of my Tuesday night IG Live free-for-all.

“Known for exposing corruption, OC public defender Scott Sanders retires”: My latest KCRW “Orange County Line” commentary is about what the headline states.

"Mending Mary repaired much more than a statue”: My latest National Catholic Reporter columna talks about a shattered statue of la Virgen that I put back together. KEY QUOTE: “To see Mary shattered before me was a reminder that when we see something sacred broken, we must do everything possible to fix it.”

“Clergy abuse survivor claims his voice on stage in 'Unreconciled'“: My first straight-up theater review in like 20 years (!) happens for National Catholic Reporter about a one-man show. KEY QUOTE: “Those are trifles, though: "Unreconciled" will make you laugh, think, cry and seethe: Theater at its finest.”

“O.C. public defender who exposed jailhouse snitch scandal is retiring, but not done”: My latest L.A. Times columna sees me and my media chica going to the retirement party of Scott Sanders. KEY QUOTE: “Someone interrupted us. Sanders went back into the photo booth, looking like the happiest guy in the world.”

“The Dodgers should meet with Trump. In No. 42 Jackie Robinson jerseys“: My next latest L.A. Times columna talks about what’s going to happen Monday, and what SHOULD happen. KEY QUOTE: “It’s time to stand tall for the Dodger Way at the moment it matters the most.”

You made it this far down? Gracias! Follow me on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram while you’re down here by clicking on their logos down below. Don’t forget to forward this newsletter to your compadres y comadres! You can’t get me tacos anymore, but you sure as hell can give them — and more — to the O.C. Catholic Worker!