My account called this morning. My returns are mostly done and it looks like I will be owing the Federal Government $3,300, plus a $90 penalty for not having enough taxes taken out of my checks. That’s about $400 more than what I owed last year, which surprised me a bit. On the other hand, I received a bonus at work, and had a story sale (for which tax was not taken out) so maybe I shouldn’t be so surprised.

It looks as though I’m going to have to have an additional $100 withheld from each paycheck if I don’t want to continue owing these sums each April. We also discussed additional write-offs. My accountant is modifying my return slightly to include some writing-related write-offs: dues to SFWA, a percentage of my account’s prep fees from last year, and expenses related to two conferences I attended in 2007, RavenCon and Capclave. She told me to keep track of all writing related expenses this year so that I might have more write-offs for next year.

She’s emailing me my return so that I can confirm it all looks “good” (a relative term, I suppose) and then she will e-file the returns for me. I am getting a small amount back from the state, but it’s small consolation. Meanwhile, I try and take this in stride and without too much complaint. After all, all I’m doing is giving money to the government. There have been countless far greater sacrifices than my measly $3,300, and in comparison to those, I have little to complain about.