Bad News? Good News!

Yep - just got my tax stuff taken care of.

Last year I owed about $900 in 2007 taxes for my home business. Between the home business stuff and our regular stuff - we had to come up with about $1,200. All things considered - I was prepared for the worst this year.

When I walk into my accountant's office on Wednesday - the first thing he says to me is, "Your days of seeing tax returns are over until you pop out a kid or two." Thanks, buddy. Not like we haven't been trying for the last 2 years!

Immediately following that statement - he looks at my home business profits for 2008 and says, "Wow! Great job this year! That means you're really going to owe though." I had kind of figured that anyways since my profits had tripled from 2007 to 2008... and we had put money in the bank in preparation for taxes. On the bright side - since my business is growing, and it is based in our home, we did get to deduct part of our utilities / trash / mortgage as a business expense this year (YAY!).

So I got a late-night e-mail last night from my accountant:

"Pack your swimsuit, you get a refund!!  Do want to direct deposit to the account I have on file?  If so I will have it ready to go Friday afternoon."

Apparently in 2007 we were at the top-end of our tax bracket and hadn't withheld enough money... but in 2008 we were at the bottom-end of a different tax bracket and had withheld too much. Cheers for that sliding scale!