Unpaid Overtime

Deduct, like a charitable deduction? Sorry, no. As in a prior thread here, donated time is not a deductible item. I hope the show went well. Joe

When your job "requires" you to donate time, it's not donation anymore. Employers can't require employees to "donate" time as a condition for employment. I am not a lawyer but I think the school district owes you a lot of money. I'd check with an employment lawyer to see about your rights.

========================================= MODERATOR'S COMMENT: You will find that for income tax purposes, the value of your time and services cannot be deducted.

Prior responses addressed this as a question regarding charitable contributions. It sounds to me more like you're thinking of some sort of "opportunity cost" deduction against your other income. In either case, the answer is no.

Of more concern to me is the $4,000 balance due that seems to be a surprise to you. Have you been making estimated tax payments to cover your teaching? Are you claiming too many withholding allowances at your W-2 jobs? There's a structural problem in your tax planning that will pop up year after year if you don't fix it.

Of more concern to me is the $4,000 balance due that seems to be a surprise to you. Have you been making estimated tax payments to cover your teaching? Are you claiming too many withholding allowances at your W-2 jobs? There's a structural problem in your tax planning that will pop up year after year if you don't fix it.

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Well, here's what happened, in a nutshell. This is my 2nd year working as a high school choral assistant. For tax year 2006 (last year), I ended up owing $2,000 because the district treated me as a contractor and refused to withhold anything. I set aside some money with each paycheck, so I was able to pay off IRS last April.

Trying to avoid this happening yet again, I set aside $200/mo last fall plus some Christmas money my mother gave me, so I now have just under $2,000 at this point (mid-March). However, I used TaxCut to do my taxes, and lo and behold, the raise I got from the school district put me into a higher tax bracket, so now I owe $4300. Last month, I consulted my church's accountant, and she advised me to divide the $4300 by 10 (there were 10 months remaining in this year) and adjust my income checks accordingly by deducting at least $400 more per month, so I got her to deduct $200 more per month from my church check (I'm an organist there) and I called my state retirement agency and got them to deduct $200 more per month from my retirement check. Hopefully, I can also set aside another $500 or so just in case I need to for taxes next year. I'm also planning on taking on piano students, so I will need to set aside 20% of my self-employment earnings from that venture to be right with IRS next year.

Thanks for writing.

vhm

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I am not a lawyer but I think the school district owes you a lot of money. I'd check with an employment lawyer to see about your rights.

You may well be right, however, I do not have another job to go to at this point, and if I see an employment lawyer about my rights, I may well find myself unemployed and unemployable, or at the very least, stuck with a job where my boss, his boss and everybody in the district hates my guts. At this point, I just want to get the tax liability problem fixed and figure out some graceful way to bow out of this job during the summer, after my contract expires and after I get another job lined up. I adamantly refuse to sign up for another year at Camp Runamuck. I may have to start teaching piano if I can't get another job.

Also, I'm not sure how I'd go about getting money from the district because it was my idea originally to play for the school play without charging them (I did not know this was illegal); I knew it would mean working extra hours unpaid, but I had no idea that my working conditions would be so bad. I spent nearly a month, every weeknight from 4 til 9 or 10, in a freezing orchestra pit (I finally bought my own portable heater), plus I found out that the music director, who I have to work with every day, is a perfectionist whose worst qualities come out when under stress, plus we had to use handwritten music that had been written over and then xeroxed time and again, so it was very hard on my eyes (at age 56, I'm already into trifocals).

Thank you for writing, however, I appreciate your taking the time to educate me a bit on this.

vhm

========================================= MODERATOR'S COMMENT: Please trim the post to which you are responding.

I think I see the problem. You effectively have three sources of income (day job, retirement, and church), and the tax rates being progressive, your tax rate on the second and third ones is much higher than it would be if they were your only source of income.

You will probably have to have something like 30% deducted from each of the retirement check and the church to avoid being under-withheld each year. When you got your raise at the school, they had no way of knowing that this would kick you into such a high bracket, because they can't see your other income.