Bloggers, vloggers, and influencers are on the rise now that we're living in the middle of the digital age. When you converse with influencers, besides talking about their platform's focus and campaign plans, conversations also take an interesting turn when talking to them about taxes.
Influencers get their income from paid partnerships with other brands and by monetizing their content. This was much harder to track before, but in recent years, the ATO is starting to pay more attention to blogs and social media platforms. The changes now require influencers to be more disciplined about their taxes.
For some influencers, dealing with taxes can be incredibly complicated. That’s why it's best to work with a reputable accountant for bloggers and influencers because they'll know all the tips and tricks to settle your taxes.
If you're curious to know how you could better handle your taxes as an influencer, read on. In this article, we'll focus on accountant-approved tips to help you deal with your taxes. Let's get to it!
Tip #1: Run Your Blog Like It's a Business
For most influencers, their blog is their main source of income or even their business. Because of this, you need to run your activity like you would a normal business.
Whichever business entity you chose—whether you're a sole proprietor, partnership, LLC, or Corporation—you need to be consistent with your accounting. When bloggers need to present their audits, the first thing accountants and auditors look at is their activity as a business.
Sure, working with an accountant will help. But if you work with a firm without a general knowledge of the business of influencers and bloggers, filing for your taxes may be difficult. Because of this, it's best to work with an accountant for bloggers and influencers to ensure that proper tax steps are taken so you can also reap some benefits.
Tip #2: Report Your Income as an Influencer
You must report all your income from wherever it's coming from; without doing so, you may trigger some issues with your audits. The thing is, many influencers are unaware that the IRS has many tools to help determine if you're honest with the income that your report.
Tip #3: Track All Your Expenses
The basic rule of filing for taxes is to ensure that all financial transactions are recorded. This is important because you're required by law to present your books, records, and receipts.
With that, as an influencer, expenses related to running your business, such as auto mileage and marketing mileage, are deductibles, so it's best to present them in your records. However, rules are different for desks, computers, and cameras, which depreciate over time.
So if you run your business at home, like how most bloggers do, you can deduct things such as homeowner's insurance, trash pickup, utilities, and more. Other than that, professional fees you pay for your business-related advice and services are deductible, too.
Tip #4: Find Ways to Reduce Your Taxes as an Influencer
There are a plethora of legal techniques to help reduce your tax liability. By adding a few days of vacation to a business trip, all of your airfare can be deductible. With that, have your business create a retirement plan for you and set it up properly, so it takes a full deduction for it. Of course, working with an accountant can help create a plan that could significantly reduce the tax burden you may be receiving.
The Bottom Line: Work with a Credible Accountant
These are only some of the best accountant-approved tips that can help you manage your taxes as an influencer. To that end, it only makes sense that you work with a credible accountant for bloggers and influencers, so they understand the inner workings of your business.
With their help, they'll get to apply tax techniques and concepts that will help reduce your taxes, allow you to file your taxes on time, and prevent you from drowning in tax-related issues.
How Can We Help You?
If you're looking for an accountant for online businesses and influencers, you should speak to the experts at the ECommerce Accountant. We offer various services that can improve your venture's profitability rate, so get in touch with us today for a free consultation!