Sunday, February 8, 2009

Microstock and Taxes

I just finished my taxes and I am relieved that I am getting a nice refund. It was a crazy year, in that I worked for 2 companies, was unemployed for a while and also made more money than I could have ever imagined selling photography on iStockphoto.com.

Which brings me to the subject of this post. Paying taxes on my stock income was a little tricky, since iStock doesn't give us any 1099's or any other record of our income. I use TurboTax for my taxes every year, partially because they were my best employer to date and partly because I love the ease of use. For my stock earnings, I followed their instructions for a Schedule C which is for Profit and Loss from Business(Sole Propietorship).

I was very conservative about what I deducted as business expenses. I claimed depreciation on my equipment and hotels/mileage on my car for two trips I took last year that were 100% photography. These trips had only one purpose, to get more images into my portfolio. I had the mileage and the hotel receipts so I felt confident in using these expenses.

I'm sure there were many other deductions i could have taken throughout the year but I didn't keep detailed records of everything, so I didn't want to create any red flags in my return.

I'm wondering what other stock contributors do for taxes? Sole propietorships? Other Deductions? Do you use accountants? I'd love to hear!!

1 comment:

  1. What about starting an LLC. so that you can really separate out your personal and business expenses? How come iStock doesn't give you a statement of the transactions a la income that you received for the year?

    This sounds like a great blog post to get an accountants opinion on. Anyone out there have an opinion?

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