Tax Deductibles for Online Content Creators

Online Content Creation is a business and if things go in your favour then you will earn income. If you instead lose money you might get assistance and tax breaks from the government. However if your business does make money you have to pay taxes. With taxes come tax deductibles that could lessen the money you owe to the government. Here are some of them:

Phone and Mobile Phone The mobile phone is the most used electronic device of most people. Many people use it for business including online content creators. They create pictures, videos and other digital content by just using a mobile phone. This means that mobile phone expenses like the cost of the mobile phone, any costs associated with maintaining it like electricity and insurance is tax deductible.

Your mobile phone can be used to conduct business like talking to one’s clients or conducting phone interviews related to one’s online content business. You can also use your mobile phone to do online research related to your business. This means that you can deduct a portion of your overall phone bill to bill expenses related to business activities.

Equipments and Supplies These means anything you use to generate online content. This could be your camera and its lenses, microphone, sound equipment, soundproofing materials and so on. This also includes the props you use to generate your online content. This props could be curtains, blackboards, physical images, nails, hammers and anything you use to create the props.

Digital Products Including Softwares If you use any kind of paid software for business then it is tax deductible. This includes operating systems such as Windows, accounting softwares, and office productivity softwares like MS Office. If you paid for any digital products such as pictures, videos, e-books and so on as long as they are used for business then they are tax deductible.

Electronics Equipment and Accessories We have talked about audio and video gears and equipments including mobile phones as tax deductible but you can also deduct other electronics such as expansion memory cards, hard drives, tablets and even your old PC. You can even include electronic accessories such as tablet pens and mouses. These are all tax deductible as well.

Website Expenses The hosting and domain payments to your internet service providers are also tax deductible. This includes the cost when you paid other people to create your website as well as the costs associated to keep your website operating like payment to programmers, writers and virtual assistants for example. If you incur financial costs because of your website content this is also tax deductible.

Marketing If you advertise in social media or even use physical advertisement such as billboards, flyers, brochures and so on then you can deduct costs associated to these to your tax payable. This includes cost associated in contest promotion activities such as prizes and giveaways. This also includes your costs in attending conferences and meetups in order to promote your business.

Merchandise If you have any costs associated with digital or physical merchandise like digital creation or physical manufacturing costs then it is deductible. This include the storage costs you incur both in digitally and physically storing your merchandise. Merchandise delivery costs whether digital or physical also is tax deductible.

Training Costs If you ever needed to go to school, study a course online, or buy books related to improving your business then this is tax deductible. This means for example if you watch free YouTube videos or read free online articles then although they might be free you can still deduct electricity and equipment costs for example. As long as there is cost involved it can be deducted.

Professional services These are the third party services you use to grow your business. I have already mentioned the tax deductions you can get from using other people to create and maintain your online presence and content like programmers, writers and virtual assistants for example. You could also add for example your car driver, camera man, cook and so on if they are required to maintain your business.

Online Transaction Fees and Bank Fees The online transaction fees you pay for online payment and for accepting online income is also tax deductible. The transaction fees may be small but once your transactions grow in volume the amount of your costs will grow as well. You can partially offset this cost as a tax deductible. This includes your regular bank fees which you must minimise at all cost as well.

Office or Home Office Fees Heating, Electricity, Internet, Water, Rent, Property Tax, Insurance, Furnitures & Fixtures, Maintenance Costs and so on can be deducted from your office, home office or coworking space. In case of the home office you can separate the portion of these costs being used for business from personal activities. You must however prove convincingly to the tax person that all your deductibles are all from business activities.

Travel and Food Expenses When you travel you can deduct your transportation, accommodation and food expenses to your tax. In case of food expenses you can still deduct them from your tax as long as your food expenses are related to your business. This means for example that even if you did not travel but entertained your clients by feeding them you can still deduct this cost.

Employee expenses If your business grows big enough you will besides to paying your employees salaries then you might also have to pay for example their medical costs incurred while doing their jobs. Your cameraman for example might damage their cameras while doing their work due to an accident. This might necessitate for you to take up insurance costs.

Conclusion

As can be seen there are many tax deductibles that you can get from your business although it is an online business which might be situated in a makeshift home office only. As long as you can prove that many of the equipments, supplies, activities you use and do are related to your business then you can declare them as tax deductibles and save money.