Writer Unboxed

Click Here! Tax Help for Writers

It’s that time of year again: Time to gather receipts and hope you actually brought in more than you spent on writing! Here are a few links I’ve culled from here and there (many from Charlotte Dillon’s excellent Links for Writers page) to help you in your quest to make this year’s tax season a cool-and-easy ride to profit.

Linkies Galore:

Taxes for Writers by Cyn Mason

Authors and the Internal Revenue Code by Linda Lewis

Writers Guide to Taxes by Linda Adams and Emory Hackman

A Little Tax Advice for Writers by Mary Anne Mohanraj

Fiction Factor links by Julian Block on:
Profit vs. Pleasure: Rules on Losses
Estimated Taxes: Another Deadline Coming Up
Award Winning Writers, Photographers and Artists are Losers Under the Tax Laws
How Long to Keep Financial Records

TAXES AND THE WRITER at Publish Lawyer

A Home Business and Taxes article by Teresa Stone

Here are a few links specific to freelancers as well. Good tips within that can apply to any kind of writer:

Taxes for Freelancers by Durant Imboden

Tax Answers for Freelance Writers at About.com

From Fiction Factor:
Filing Time Reminders for Freelancers
Better Tax Breaks for Freelancers

Want to know even more? You can buy a book on the subject, Writer’s Pocket Tax Guide, at Foolscap & Quill’s.

Therese Walsh co-founded Writer Unboxed in 2006. Her debut novel, The Last Will of Moira Leahy, sold to Random House in a two-book deal in 2008, was named one of January Magazine’s Best Books of 2009, and was a Target Breakout Book in 2010. She's never been published with a lit magazine, but LOST's Carlton Cuse liked her haiku best on Twitter, and that made her pretty happy.

Therese Walsh

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4 Responses to “Click Here! Tax Help for Writers”

Eric

says:

January 10, 2007 at 11:41 am

Good stuff. I just incorporated this year, so I’ll be doing a lot of these things. Been saving up receipts. Do you think receipts for fiction novels count? After all, it’s ‘market research.’

Like? 0

Therese Walsh

says:

January 10, 2007 at 1:31 pm

YES, they do count, according to my CPA, but just a fraction. I think he said we could take 30% of their value and claim them as research. Check with your own CPA (or put a quick call into one if you don’t have one yourself) before you do it, though.

Like? 0