Tax tips for Instagram influencers / bloggers / YouTube content creators

Are you an Instagram influence or Youtuber? Did you know 86% of young Australians just like you want to be influencers? In 2018 - 46% of you between 18-24 said that travel blogging is your full-time career preference, followed by food blogging (16%) and fashion blogging (9%). Here are things you might not have known about your tax return:

Even if you earn less than the minimum taxable income ($18 200) keep your receipts AND label your expenses in you bank account (I use startup pocketbook) because you can claim it all back in future years BUT you must lodge the expenses from this year in this year.

For example, you buy a new iPhone in 2020 and drop $2k, but say you start earning enough to pay tax in 2021 - you should ideally have lodged that iPhone expense in 2020 and “carry loss forward” to 2021. This is what they mean by “carryforward” or “carryover” You claim deduction on:

Internet & phone bill, website domain/hosting/building costs
Partial electricity bill & cleaning costs associated with working from home
Things you buy to giveaway to your followers (unless you got it for free…)
Office stuff: desk, chair, camera, lighting setup
Software :think mailchimp, canva pro, hubspot, typeform and storage for your photos / content
Education: any course you do that helps you learn (so don’t ignore learning, I’ve personally invested $10k last year in online non traditional courses and invest a % of my income every year .. my business coach has invested a total of 300k - in non university education … crazy right ( I mean she even put it on a credit card and got into debt for it (I don’t recommend this)… she’s since made 7 million dollars and is … 24 years old lol) Remember learning digital marketing, hiring a business coach, nailing sales are all things that help the future you make more money. So invest. Personally I treat this with more regard than my mortgage). I digress.
Professional membership fees to business networks (think [Leap.Club] or Slashie or Australian South Asian Centre). Your network matters, especially for women. [Read this] if you’re not sure.
Travel to events / functions related to your content creation
Conferences tickets
Food related to meetings you have (etc if you buy chai for a client)
If the home office equipment is $300 or under you can claim whole cost, if it’s more it must be depreciated (meaning your claim back a little bit every single year as the value of it diminishes)
Travel related to your meetings / getting new clients etc
The cost of your accountant. I used to try do this all myself and save $200-300 but now I always use an accountant since I’ve set a personal aspirational hourly rate of $500 so it makes sense to outsource this.
Questions to ask your accountant: do you have online content creators or media professionals as clients ? What can I deduct specific to my business? Remember it’s like dating - you might have to talk to a few.

Carryover: For example you might only earn 1-5k on the side in year 1, and say in year 4 you earn 20-30k - all the expenses you incurred from earlier years you can deduct against in year 4 but you must claim them as a loss you carry forward from year 1. If you think you’ll never make 30k off I your content in the future… think again - I believe in you. I once knew a news reporter who claimed her makeup as an expense… her accountant is a legend - is that allowed - YES as she is required to wear her makeup for work (unfortunately…) … again as long as you can prove it’s related to your work - yes. It comes under category of “personal grooming” … as I write this I’m now wondering if my laser hair removal counts, I mean if I never saw people I would stay hairy AF for life to be honest. During COVID I’ve been using filters but my moustache is now huge - thinking of keeping it. I digress. Hope this helps; I’m not an accountant and this isn’t professional advice (I did do a commerce degree, majored in finance and served on the board of a publicly listed company - so I can count using both hands). It’s worth getting a good savvy accountant who already has content creators as clients and knows what is deductible AND for you personally to have an understanding of how money / tax work (Mariam’s MoneyGirl Group on Facebook is amazing). Generally speaking if you can prove it has to do with your content creation - it’s deductible. If can claim laser …. I’ll be over the moon. Even better: if people stopped commenting on my hairiness and let me live as a fur ball. Love, Daizy