Omigod! Omigod! Omigod! I've Been Saved!

First let me tell you about the dark cloud that's been figuratively hanging over my head as I awaited the arrival of my dreaded W2. As I've mentioned, I wait tables part-time, which allows me to make roughly 130% more money than I made in my full-time legal secretary job B.K. (Before Katrina, for those not in the know. It's like B.C. and A.D.). Mostly this is because I pocket between $400-700 a week in cash. I am also "paid" a sort-of salary of $2 an hour, from which my taxes are deducted so I receive a paycheck of $0 every two weeks. The huge catch in the wonderful waterfall of hundreds and twenties that is waitressing is the part where you have to pay taxes at the end of the year. This is the first year in which waiting tables was my only job, so I was very anxious to see how things would shake down. I do declare my tips to my employer, but I claim them using a personal formula I came up with, of which I am not certain the United States government would approve (this would be a good place for George W. to talk about liberals and their "fuzzy math").

Anyhow, I sat down right away to see how much damage I was going to take. At first glance, it wasn't going well. I watched nervously as the little ticker number at the edge of the TurboTax screen dropped a hundred bucks into the red. Crap. But wait! I wasn't finished! Because lo, I am a graduate student who pays her own tuition out of pocket. I am here to tell you that, in the eyes of the IRS, this is the most taxably amazing thing you can possibly do. I hit "Optimize Education Credits" and the number jumped into the green. My heart leapt! And then-- it did not stop! It scrolled all the way up to 1,029, where it decided its work was done and proceeded to stick.

I GET 1,000! I GET 1,000!**

In other news, I'm taking a shower now. It seems like every time I get off my butt to participate in Thursday Thirteen, Google/Blogger experiences server issues. I haven't been able to load other people's blogs, nor can they see mine without that error message. Go figure. :Shrug:

**We can talk about the $288 I owe the State of Louisiana later. Like in May when I actually file my state return at the last second. I'm not letting the State of Louisiana shit on my parade!!!

Tags: tax return