Articles

See You Next Year, Tax Day

by Renee Holden, Head Editor, INALJ Nebraska

See You Next Year, Tax Day

77491_539638406062729_675693252_oApril 15…Tax Day.  As a public librarian, there is very little that strikes fear into the hearts of public librarians everywhere like Tax Day.  On April 15 every year public libraries are filled with those last minute tax procrastinators and those filers who try to find deductions in everything they own.  They rush into their local public library and look at the poor unsuspecting librarian at the service desk and unleash their myriad of tax questions:

  • I own a houseboat that sits on a very small pond in my backyard.  What type of form do I use for that?
  • I just bought a XBOX 360.  Can I deduct it on my taxes?
  • I know I owe a lot of money to the IRS.  Do you think the IRS would be mad if I didn’t pay them this year?
  • I am so mad at the IRS this year for delaying the forms sent out.  I think that I am going to pay my taxes with rolled coins.  Do you think I will get in trouble for that?
  • Do you know if I can claim my cat/dog as a dependent?

Unfortunately, librarians that work service desks have heard all of these and more on April 15…Tax Day.  Well, April 15 is now over…guess we now have 11 more months until next year’s Tax Day.

Naomi House

Naomi House, MLIS, is the founder and publisher of the popular webzine and jobs list INALJ.com (formerly I Need a Library Job) and former CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) of T160K.org, a crowdfunding platform focused on African patrimony, heritage and cultural projects. INALJ was founded in October 2010 with the assistance of her fellow Rutgers classmate, Elizabeth Leonard. Its social media presence has grown to include Facebook (retired in 2016), Twitter and a LinkedIn group, in addition to the interviews, articles and jobs found on INALJ. INALJ has had over 21 Million page hits and helped many, many thousands of librarians find employment! Through grassroots marketing, word of mouth and a real focus on exploring unconventional resources for job leads, INALJ grew from a subscription base of 20 friends to a website with over 500,000 visits in one month. Naomi believes that well-sourced quantity is quality in this narrow job market and INALJ reflects this with many new jobs published daily. She has also written for the 2011, 2012 and 2013 LexisNexis Government Info Pro and many other publications in the past decade. She presents whenever she can, including serving on three panels at the American Library Association's Annual Conference in Las Vegas; as breakout presenter at OCLC EMEA in Cape Town, South Africa; as a keynote speaker at the Virginia Library Association annual meeting; at the National Press Club in Washington DC; McGill University in Montreal, Canada; the University of the Emirates, Dubai, MLIS program and the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Naomi was a Reference, Marketing and Acquisitions Librarian for a contractor at a federal library outside Washington, DC, and has been living and working in Budapest, Hungary and Western New York State. She spent years running her husband’s moving labor website, fixed and sold old houses and assisted her husband cooking delicious Pakistani food. She is preparing to re-enter the workforce and is job hunting. Her husband is now the co-editor of INALJ, a true support!  She has heard of spare time but hasn’t encountered it lately. She pronounces INALJ as eye-na-elle-jay. 

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