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.
About Therese Walsh
Therese Walsh co-founded WU in 2006 and is the site's editorial director. She was the architect and 1st editor of WU's only book, Author in Progress, and orchestrates the WU UnConference. Her second novel, The Moon Sisters, was named one of the best books of the year by Library Journal and Book Riot; and her debut, The Last Will of Moira Leahy was a Target Breakout Book. Sign up for her newsletter to be among the first to learn about her new projects (or follow her on BookBub). Learn more on her website.
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.’
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.
I hope I can start doing this with my taxes NEXT year. :-) Lots of great links – thanks!
Hey, all kinds of links for tax time in one place-great. I’ve soooo put a link to this in one of my blog posts!!