Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we’re free at last!
You know that scene in 24 where Jack is interrogating Audrey, and he totally knocks over the table, then grabs her and he’s shouting right into her face and she’s all “No, Jack! Have mercy! Aaaargh!”, but it’s all in vain because you just know that sometime before the top of the hour, the Bad Man With the Syringe is going to come in and torture her? Yeah, that’s kinda what this whole “filing the annual accounts” thing has been like.
I mean, I should make it clear upfront that Terry didn’t actually torture me. But also? He kind of did, in a way, because I? Hate this. HATE. THIS. I hate every penny-counting second of it and there have been so many times this month when I’ve wanted to cower helplessly on the floor, rocking back and forth and shouting, “please, no more! No more, I tell you!” Sometimes, in fact, I just went right ahead and did it. But it’s over. We survived. And next year, I really will be better. No, I really will, I swear.
From this point on, however, there are to be changes, both good and bad.
Good change: I am now being paid a salary! An actual, honest-to-God salary, that will be paid into my bank account every month, for as long as the business account can support it. (Possibly not very long, then).
Bad change: In order to avoid being taxed to the eyeballs, this salary will be the smallest amount it is possible to pay someone without being charged for it. If you were to take the number of hours I work (bearing in mind that being self-employed freaks me out to the point that I feel guilty if I stop for a toilet break) and divide it by the amount of my so-called salary (I’m sensing a theme here), it actually goes into negative figures. Yeah.
Obviously, this is not as bad as it sounds as I can also be paid dividends from the business. (Do I sound like I know what I’m talking about here? Or is it totally obvious that I thought dividends were something you got in Monopoly?) This, however, is frowned upon. By Terry, specifically, who seems to feel that I should have the ability to survive on fresh air month after month. It’s not good, people. It’s terrible being poor, especially when you desperately need new clothes.
In other news, it took me almost 90 minutes to get dressed this morning. I SO need to shop…
Do you have someone doing your taxes? Because the paying-yourself-in-dividends thing is a dicey area and may not be the most tax-effective method.
Yeah, we have a very good accountant – and I’m not actually paying myself in dividends, I’m just too dumb to understand how it all actually works
just a test