PLEASE HELP!!! NOT SURE WHERE I WENT WRONG
To my friendly student tax preparer: Hello, my name is Shady Slim. I understand you are going to help me figure out my gross income for the year ... whatever that means. It's been a busy year and I'm a busy person, so let me give you the lowdown on my life and you can do your thing. I was unemployed at the beginning of the year and got $2,000 in unemployment compensation. I later got a job as a manager for Roca Cola. I earned $60,000 in base salary this year. My boss gave me a $7,000 Christmas bonus check on December 22. I decided to hold on to that check and not cash it until next year, so I won't have to pay taxes on it this year. Pretty smart, huh? My Job's pretty cool. I get a lot of fringe benefits like a membership to the gym that costs $500 a year and all the Roca Cola I can drink, although I can't really drink a whole lot-I figure $40 worth this year. As part of my manager duties, I get to decide on certain things like contracts for the company. My good buddy, Eddie, runs a bottling company. I made sure that he won the bottling contract for Roca Cola for this year (even though his contract wasn't quite the best). Eddle bought me a Corvette this year for being such a good friend. The Corvette cost $70,000, and I'm sure he bought it for me out of the goodness of his heart. What a great friend! Here's a bit of good luck for the year. Upon leaving my office one day, I found $9,000 lying in the street! Well, one person's bad luck is my good luck, right? I like to gamble a lot. I won a $30,000 poker tournament in Las Vegas this year. I also won about $5,400 over the year playing the guys at our Friday night poker game. Can you belleve that I didn't lose anything this year? Speaking of the poker games, I got hit by a car one night while leaving a game. I broke my right leg and my left arm. I sued the driver and got $15,000 for my medical expenses and $4,000 to pay my psychotherapist for the emotional problems I had relating to the injuries (I got really depressed!), and I won $14,000 in punitive damages. That'll teach them! Another bit of bad luck. My uncle Monty died this year. I really liked the guy, but the $300,000 inheritance I received from him made me feel a little better about the loss. I did the smart thing with the money and Invested it in stocks and bonds and socked a little into my savings account. As a result, I receIved $700 in dividends from the stock, $300 in interest from the municipal bonds, and $400 in interest from my savings account. My ex-wife, Alice, Is still paying me alimony. She's a lawyer who divorced me in 2015 because I was "unethical" or something like that. Because she was making so much money and I was unemployed at the time, the judge ruled that she had to pay me alimony. She sent me $5,000 in alimony payments this year. She still kind of likes me, though. She sent me a check for $600 as a Christmas glft this year. I didn't get her anything, though. So there you go. That's this year in a nutshell. Can you figure out my gross income and complete page 1 of Form 1040 (through line 9) and Schedule 1 for me? And because you're a student, this is free, right? Thanks, I owe you one! Let me know if I can get you a six-pack of Roca Cola or something. a. Calculate the gross income. Answer is complete but not entirely correct
