Tax Tips for Performing Artist

Series Summary

So you work for yourself, piling up the cash for those contract jobs, thinking you may just have saved up enough for that new monitor or computer that will make your job so much easier... but that was until you sat down to do your unemployment taxes. Turns out that you owe almost as much as you saved up! Little did you know that self employment tax chews up close to thirty percent of your income. Now you are desperate to reduce the amount you have to pay, if just by a little but hopefully by a lot. Fortunately, the self employment form allows for many deductions. All you have to do is find the ones which apply to your business.

In this series of free tax advice videos, our professional accountant will show you how to save money on your self employment taxes. Tom Choisnet tells you how to claim deductions if you are a performing artist, home business owner or minister. Learn about tax categories such as omission of income, foreign exclusion and debt cancellation. Find out if you can deduct club dues or unemployment checks on your return. Tom also shares his tips for interpreting the fifty percent rule and the alternative minimum tax. Watch this series and save money on your taxes!

Video Transcript

"Hi, I’m Tom Choisnet, enrolled agent. This segment is about qualified performing artists; out here in California there is a lot of film extras that is all they do. They can deduct all of their expenses what we call above the line, they can deduct it toward their adjusted gross income. There are several minor qualifications that are necessary for the qualified performing artist situation to occur; and you require two employers as an artist, the expenses have to be over ten percent of that income and here’s the kicker because it doesn’t apply to too many people but it does come up. The adjusted gross income has to be under sixteen thousand dollars, but it is an interesting little part of the law and it applies to a few people and I thought I might throw this in here and now you know something maybe you’ve would not have otherwise known. Enjoy this and maybe some of the other clips. "