More on the Employment Front - employer and employee

I filed with the state this morning so that I'm actually legal to hire employees. Though it also means that now, regardless of whether or not I have an employee, I have to file quarterly employment taxes. Taxes of any sort make me really nervous so I'm less then keen on that front. I figure though that at least it will make me keep my Quickbooks updated on a more frequent basis.

Speaking of accounting...a funny story...as I'm sure you're aware everyone's favorite April 15th deadline is coming up and I needed the business CPA to file the Partnership Form/Schedule C from the business so that the losses from the business could flow through to my husband and my personal taxes. I was having a hard time reaching the business CPA and was getting antsy about 4-15 so finally contacted the CPA who has been doing my husband's taxes for years. Keep in mind that my husband and I just got married in July so this will be the first time we file jointly.

I call up my husband's CPA and explain that I need to have a Partnership Form/Schedule C filed and what type of documents does he need from me to accomplish that. "Do you keep books on the business?", he asks me. I just about laughed out loud and said that of course I had accounting books on the business and that did indeed file annual business taxes in January as required. Then I realized that he must run into his fair share of "wives who run a home-based business" but keep no type of accounting records whatsoever which is a little scary. It's also a little scary that for a moment or two my business was lumped in, in his mind at least, with those. Sometimes it's just hard to be taken seriously when you make no money.

And speaking of that, this weekend I was playing around on the internet and found what appears to be, at least via the internet listing, the 'perfect' little beach cottage just about 90 minutes from us. From the pictures and the description it really does seem quite perfect and something we'd probably totally jump on if I was working for someone else and bringing in the type of salary my peers are which is a bit of a bummer. More than anything else it was one of those times when the reality of my choices came to stare me in the face in a way that hurt* the family unit.

*I use the word hurt warily here because complaining about not being able to buy a beach cottage isn't exactly the end of the world. Trust me when I say I realize that my little family is in a very good spot right now and really happy. It was just one of those times when I wished I could have been making that type of income so as to be able to more seriously think about these opportunities without the entire weight of our financial lives riding on my husband's shouldars.