EP 93: Tax Deductions You Might Be Missing

00:00:00 [Alison]
You don’t have to have a BA or any sort of degree to be a photographer.
00:00:03 [Alison]
But we do have to be aware of what we’re responsible for because regardless of who’s preparing those taxes, we sign the dotted line.

00:00:12 [Melissa]
Welcome to Get Booked, a photography podcast.

00:00:14 [Alison]
I’m Allison, active duty Marine Corps spouse, family photographer, and business mentor.

00:00:19 [Melissa]
And I’m Melissa, a lifestyle newborn turned SEO expert for photographers.

00:00:23 [Alison]
Between us, we have twenty seven years in the industry, nine business relocations, and a lot of lessons learned the hard way through experience.

00:00:30 [Melissa]
We’re here to help you get visible, get clients, and build a business that actually books.
00:00:35 [Melissa]
Let’s go.

00:00:38 [Alison]
Alright.
00:00:39 [Alison]
Hey, guys.
00:00:39 [Alison]
Welcome back.
00:00:40 [Alison]
Today is gonna be all about love, hate relationship with taxes.
00:00:43 [Alison]
But before we get into that, I wanna let you know, April 23 is going to be the second workshop of the year.

00:00:50 [Alison]
So these are live workshops where I get together guys and we you bring your business and I bring the strategy.
00:00:55 [Alison]
And the topic for April is going to be blogging.
00:00:57 [Alison]
This is all about getting booked, writing content that ranks, optimized for your location, your style of photography, and your personality because you are the secret sauce.
00:01:07 [Alison]
Right?
00:01:08 [Alison]
Yes.

00:01:08 [Alison]
You can use some AI in there, but what we’re gonna be focusing on is formatting, keyword research, optimizing that content, and ultimately getting you a twelve month blogging plan that’s gonna get you booked.
00:01:18 [Alison]
So if you come live, you’re gonna get some customized keyword research, so a little incentive to come out there, recordings available.
00:01:24 [Alison]
So hit the link in the show notes for more details about that.
00:01:28 [Alison]
Now let’s talk taxes.
00:01:29 [Alison]
I think we all have a love, hate relationship with this.

00:01:31 [Alison]
It’s certainly taken me many years to make this not a miserable process.
00:01:35 [Alison]
Can’t even use the word enjoyment.
00:01:36 [Alison]
So what we’re gonna be talking about today is all about some deductions that you might not be thinking about and some fun stories that got us to those places.
00:01:44 [Alison]
So alright, Melissa.
00:01:45 [Alison]
What you got for us?

00:01:46 [Melissa]
So I am all about outsourcing, especially outsourcing things that I would like a professional to do for me.
00:01:52 [Melissa]
I have a bookkeeper.
00:01:53 [Melissa]
She does a fabulous job.
00:01:55 [Melissa]
But at the worst luck with accountants, guys.
00:01:58 [Melissa]
I actually just hired a new accountant.

00:02:00 [Melissa]
This is my third accountant in, like, the last, I don’t know, five or six years.
00:02:04 [Melissa]
And it’s interesting because I knew that I had a first accountant that was horrible.
00:02:08 [Melissa]
I, like, almost blocked it out of my head of, like, why he was so bad.
00:02:11 [Melissa]
Allison had to remind me.
00:02:12 [Melissa]
Yep.

00:02:12 [Melissa]
Because as we were talking about these issues I had, we really were kind of equating it back to photographers too.
00:02:18 [Melissa]
The first guy, he totally disappeared after filing my extension.

00:02:21 [Alison]
He ghosted Melissa.
00:02:23 [Alison]
Don’t do that, guys.

00:02:23 [Melissa]
I was expecting him in emails to file this.
00:02:27 [Melissa]
And it was one of those he didn’t say, like, you’re fired.
00:02:29 [Melissa]
I don’t wanna work with you anymore because then we’re like, alright.
00:02:31 [Melissa]
Fine.
00:02:31 [Melissa]
I’ll go find somebody else.

00:02:32 [Melissa]
He just was like, oh, yeah.
00:02:33 [Melissa]
I’m gonna get to it.
00:02:34 [Melissa]
I’m gonna get to it.
00:02:34 [Melissa]
And I’m like, have you gotten to it?
00:02:35 [Melissa]
Have you gotten to it?

00:02:36 [Alison]
And then when when when when when October before they finally got filed?

00:02:40 [Melissa]
It was it was actually I do remember this.
00:02:42 [Melissa]
Now it’s all coming back to me.
00:02:44 [Melissa]
We were right on that deadline where we had filed an extension, and I was like, if you don’t get our taxes filed, and I had turned in all of the forms to him, I was like, we are gonna get a penalty.
00:02:53 [Melissa]
And he was at a point where he was, I will pay the penalty if it doesn’t go in in time.
00:02:57 [Melissa]
And I’m, okay, dude.

00:02:58 [Melissa]
Sure.
00:02:58 [Melissa]
You say that now.
00:02:59 [Melissa]
So Right.
00:03:00 [Melissa]
He got those in, and so I was, okay.
00:03:02 [Melissa]
I need a new accountant.

00:03:03 [Melissa]
So the next guy I got I actually met him at a photography networking event fifteen years ago, got on his email list, and I was, oh, great.
00:03:11 [Melissa]
He, like, works with photographers.
00:03:12 [Melissa]
This should be awesome.
00:03:14 [Melissa]
And then last year, he sent me our taxes and was telling us that we owed $11,000, and I was, that’s impossible.
00:03:21 [Melissa]
How in the world do we owe $11,000?

00:03:24 [Melissa]
And turned out, he never bothered to ask me if I paid my estimated federal taxes.
00:03:29 [Melissa]
I assumed he saw it in my QuickBooks where the payments were made.
00:03:32 [Melissa]
And so once we figured that out yeah, once we figured that out, we got a refund.
00:03:37 [Melissa]
You know?
00:03:37 [Melissa]
It was like it went from owing 11 to getting a refund, and I was, oh my gosh.

00:03:42 [Melissa]
And so, honestly, this year, I was like, alright.
00:03:45 [Melissa]
I I want somebody who actually knows what they’re doing, who’s gonna prepare me better.
00:03:50 [Melissa]
So this time around, I asked locally to people I knew who had businesses, and I was like, I don’t want someone that’s somewhere else.
00:03:57 [Melissa]
I want someone that if I wanna show up in his office, I can show up in his office.
00:04:01 [Melissa]
I can schedule an appointment.

00:04:02 [Melissa]
I can’t do this.
00:04:03 [Melissa]
I don’t know where you are, and you just disappear.
00:04:05 [Melissa]
I wanna know that you’re local, and there’s just kinda that weight of you’re not an anonymous face Yeah.
00:04:10 [Melissa]
Kind of thing.

00:04:10 [Alison]
Yeah.

00:04:11 [Melissa]
Well, so highly recommended.

00:04:13 [Alison]
Well, your second guy did two things right.
00:04:15 [Alison]
He had an email list.
00:04:16 [Alison]
And then he was using it, and you sat there for a while.
00:04:19 [Alison]
You were on his list for a really long time, but he got you because he had an email list.

00:04:23 [Melissa]
So Yeah.
00:04:23 [Melissa]
Yeah.

00:04:24 [Alison]
I mean.

00:04:24 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:04:24 [Melissa]
So I I totally I was like, alright.
00:04:26 [Melissa]
Great.
00:04:27 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:04:27 [Melissa]
And so now the new guy, one of the things I noticed is when I was actually fill he has an onboarding system.

00:04:33 [Melissa]
Allison and I have talked about this before of, you know, don’t ghost your leads.
00:04:36 [Melissa]
You need to have an onboarding system where Mhmm.
00:04:39 [Melissa]
People feel welcome when they sign up for your email

00:04:41 [Alison]
list.
00:04:42 [Alison]
Yep.

00:04:42 [Melissa]
Yes.
00:04:43 [Melissa]
And then that’s for when they book so they know what’s next in the process, and it was great.
00:04:47 [Melissa]
I actually got to the last page of this guy’s, like, questionnaire and all this stuff.
00:04:51 [Melissa]
And there was a question on there, and it said, did you pay estimated taxes?
00:04:55 [Melissa]
If so, please list the dates and the amounts.

00:04:57 [Melissa]
And I was, oh, hallelujah.
00:04:58 [Melissa]
Like, that would have saved me so much stress last year with the previous guy.
00:05:03 [Melissa]
And then, you know, also, I would say too, whether you know, whoever you’re with, double check stuff until you can trust them.
00:05:08 [Melissa]
Because now it turns out, as I turned in all of my paperwork for the new guy, I realized the old guy double counted some of my incomes.
00:05:15 [Melissa]
Pay, like, an extra $2,000 in taxes.

00:05:17 [Melissa]
And I’m you’ve got to be kidding me.
00:05:19 [Melissa]
That’s And that my horror story.

00:05:20 [Alison]
And it is a horror story.
00:05:21 [Alison]
And that, honestly, that’s why we’re doing this episode is because by talking about these things, you don’t have to have a BA or any sort of degree to be a photographer.
00:05:31 [Alison]
But we do have to be aware of what we’re responsible for because regardless of who’s preparing those taxes, we sign the dotted line.
00:05:38 [Alison]
And so Yes.
00:05:38 [Alison]
By not being aware of what to look for, your like, we can learn something.

00:05:43 [Alison]
I have learned so much from your stories.
00:05:45 [Alison]
And so that’s why we wanna share things of what can be deducted.
00:05:48 [Alison]
What do you need to know?
00:05:49 [Alison]
What do you need to look for that is specific to photography and maybe your business?
00:05:53 [Alison]
So you you can double check because that’s the biggest thing is we cannot I feel the most pressure of of having to know everything.

00:06:01 [Alison]
We cannot.
00:06:02 [Alison]
We cannot.
00:06:02 [Alison]
The fact that you’ve had to follow-up on a per so called professional, that you’ve had to find the mistakes of another so called professional is horrifying to me.
00:06:11 [Alison]
I don’t want to know about taxes.
00:06:13 [Alison]
I don’t my gut check, my creative side just wants to abdicate all responsibility, but I’m channeling inner Denise Dt from the Get Rich book to take power.

00:06:22 [Alison]
We can do this, ladies.
00:06:24 [Alison]
Well, you can do this.
00:06:25 [Alison]
We do need to do this, and Melissa is an example of why.
00:06:28 [Alison]
So here we are.
00:06:28 [Alison]
We’re talking about taxes.

00:06:29 [Alison]
We can do this.

00:06:30 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:06:31 [Melissa]
So first thing I will say too when it comes to taxes for photographers, this is an issue I feel like that’s coming up a little bit more, and that’s the $10.90 nines that sometimes people get from a client.
00:06:41 [Melissa]
So I just wanna raise this issue because I thought my tax guy last year would have fixed this for me.
00:06:47 [Melissa]
He did not, which is why I got double income.
00:06:49 [Melissa]
So especially if you’re a brand photographer, but sometimes portrait photographers get it too.

00:06:53 [Melissa]
If someone is paying through their business for their session, for starters, that’s not a red flag.
00:06:58 [Melissa]
I mean, I don’t know how many times I see where people posting.
00:07:01 [Melissa]
They’re like, someone’s trying to get my get a w or what?
00:07:03 [Melissa]
An I nine from me because they wanna ten ninety nine me.
00:07:06 [Melissa]
And it’s yes.

00:07:07 [Melissa]
If they paid you with business funds, then they have

00:07:10 [Alison]
to issue to them.
00:07:11 [Alison]
Yes.

00:07:11 [Melissa]
Yeah.

00:07:12 [Alison]
Just to back up, the $10.99 is the independent contractor Right.
00:07:16 [Alison]
Payment form.

00:07:17 [Melissa]
Non compensation or non non employee compensation.

00:07:20 [Alison]
Right.
00:07:20 [Alison]
Non employee.
00:07:21 [Alison]
So if you did brand photos that’s why it’s common with brand photographers because it’s a business expense for that person’s company.
00:07:26 [Alison]
So just to

00:07:27 [Melissa]
But even if you’re a family photographer, maybe mom’s, hey.
00:07:30 [Melissa]
I’m using these photos photos on my website.
00:07:32 [Melissa]
Obviously, if she’s gotten permission from you or whatever.
00:07:35 [Melissa]
But she might be doing that through her business because she needs that that content.
00:07:38 [Melissa]
So it’s not a red flag if somebody’s trying to pay that pay you with that.

00:07:42 [Melissa]
Like, don’t panic on that.
00:07:44 [Melissa]
And whether you agree or disagree with whether they should be using business funds, that’s honestly between them and the IRS.
00:07:49 [Melissa]
It has not to do with you.
00:07:51 [Melissa]
Stay in your lane.
00:07:52 [Melissa]
It’s your beeswax at that point.

00:07:54 [Melissa]
Let them fight it out.
00:07:55 [Melissa]
But where the issue I have noticed comes into play is, you know, obviously, I’ll get ten ninety nines from clients for our SEO work, but I also get a ten ninety nine from Stripe, which is where their money funnels through.
00:08:08 [Melissa]
So when I’m looking at my ten ninety nines, if I were to add all of them up, it would be, you know, almost 50% more than what I actually made.
00:08:16 [Melissa]
Wrong.
00:08:16 [Melissa]
Flat out.

00:08:17 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:08:17 [Melissa]
And that’s, yeah, that’s not it.
00:08:19 [Melissa]
And so it’s really from what I understand, the tax professional, at that point, is able to say, oh, this is the income.
00:08:25 [Melissa]
This is the one we’re going off of.
00:08:27 [Melissa]
That income from these is included in this other one.

00:08:30 [Melissa]
And I made the mistake of assuming that my professional tax guy would know that, which he did not.
00:08:35 [Melissa]
The new one, I already was, how are we gonna fix this?

00:08:38 [Alison]
Yeah.

00:08:39 [Melissa]
So he’s gonna go based off of my QuickBooks income.
00:08:42 [Melissa]
And that was actually what tripped me up.
00:08:43 [Melissa]
I looked at my profit and loss statement last year, and I was, why is that $10,000 less than what it says for my s corp return?
00:08:48 [Melissa]
I mean, that’s not right.
00:08:49 [Melissa]
And then I tracked it down.

00:08:50 [Melissa]
So

00:08:51 [Alison]
That’s huge.

00:08:51 [Melissa]
When you get those $10.90 nines, let your accountant know.
00:08:54 [Melissa]
Don’t just assume that they know what they’re doing.
00:08:56 [Melissa]
You know?
00:08:56 [Melissa]
Say, hey.
00:08:57 [Melissa]
This $10.99 and this $10.99, that income came through if you’ve got Stripe or PayPal or something like that.

00:09:04 [Melissa]
If it’s coming through double like that, just make sure you because I don’t want you to have to pay extra taxes.
00:09:08 [Melissa]
So that’s kinda my big watch out for that.
00:09:10 [Melissa]
I feel like that’s becoming a lot more common nowadays.
00:09:12 [Melissa]
And again, like we said with brand photographers, it’s definitely a thing.
00:09:15 [Melissa]
So definitely keep an eye out for that.

00:09:19 [Alison]
Hey.
00:09:19 [Alison]
Allison here.
00:09:20 [Alison]
I have a blog post that is ranking in the top three nationally every spring for its search terms.
00:09:25 [Alison]
Another still blowing up from 2021, I think.
00:09:28 [Alison]
I actually can’t remember when I wrote it, but it’s been a long time.

00:09:31 [Alison]
And it’s the reason I had a wait list in Hawaii before I ever arrived on island.
00:09:35 [Alison]
In April, we’re building that for you live.
00:09:37 [Alison]
Number two is blogging strategically.
00:09:40 [Alison]
Throwing a thousand words and some pics on a post won’t get you traffic or inquiries.
00:09:45 [Alison]
You bring your business, I’ll bring the strategy, and together, we’re gonna nail down custom keyword research, optimized content, and twelve month blogging plan that books for you where you are.

00:09:57 [Alison]
Blog to book, link in the show notes.
00:10:01 [Alison]
Alright.
00:10:01 [Alison]
So when it comes to hiring an accountant and finding somebody, you really wanna continue to think about this, the photography business.
00:10:08 [Alison]
Right?
00:10:09 [Alison]
No time to be finding an accountant.

00:10:10 [Alison]
They are in the thick of their busy season and hopefully don’t have time to talk to you.
00:10:14 [Alison]
And the people who are available are probably not the people who you wanna trust.
00:10:19 [Alison]
Right?
00:10:19 [Alison]
Think about the clients that reach out to you in October and want to get into your schedule of next week.
00:10:24 [Alison]
That’s what it’s like for in a tax accountant right now during tax season.

00:10:27 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:10:27 [Melissa]
You’re not gonna make friends with that accountant if that’s your

00:10:29 [Alison]
first impression.
00:10:30 [Alison]
Oh, they’re not very busy.

00:10:32 [Melissa]
I need you to do my taxes right now.
00:10:34 [Melissa]
And they’re like, no, lady.
00:10:35 [Melissa]
Get in line.
00:10:35 [Melissa]
You should have been here three months ago.

00:10:37 [Alison]
Exactly.
00:10:38 [Alison]
Exactly.

00:10:39 [Melissa]
So maybe put it on your talents.

00:10:40 [Alison]
Put it on your calendar this summer.
00:10:42 [Alison]
Start looking for somebody once extension season’s over.
00:10:45 [Alison]
When they’re kind of recuperating, it’s their January.
00:10:49 [Alison]
Just breathe deep.
00:10:49 [Alison]
Put a Google task list reminder to come back to that.

00:10:52 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:10:52 [Melissa]
And I would say too with that, see if you can find somebody local and see if you can schedule a meeting with them.
00:10:57 [Melissa]
That’s one of the things that I asked the tax guy that we’re going with now.
00:11:00 [Melissa]
We had an initial, like, consult, and then I asked him, can I book a meeting with you where we can actually go through my business and the income I’m making and figure out what’s the best way to handle things so that that way I money in house?
00:11:13 [Melissa]
I don’t want to give it all to the government if I don’t have to.

00:11:15 [Melissa]
If I have to, I’ll give it to them.
00:11:16 [Melissa]
But if there are legal ways that I just don’t know about because I’m not a tax professional.

00:11:21 [Alison]
Right?
00:11:22 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:11:22 [Alison]
And those face to face meetings, very similar to reason why I get on the phone with all of my inquiries before they book is you learn so much more having a conversation.
00:11:31 [Alison]
You know, if you just fill out this form, the systemized automated form that he’s got and call it a day, you may be missing out on stuff.
00:11:37 [Alison]
It’s the best way to

00:11:38 [Melissa]
Yeah.

00:11:39 [Alison]
To create a a great working relationship.
00:11:42 [Alison]
And another nod to finding somebody local, the first person we hired in Virginia, I was not a fan of from day one.
00:11:49 [Alison]
She was a referral from somebody we trusted.
00:11:50 [Alison]
She was local right there.
00:11:52 [Alison]
She was a small business that had been around a really long time.

00:11:54 [Alison]
She herself was mature, advanced in years, and so she had been doing it a long time.
00:11:59 [Alison]
But the way they had just moved their business, and I remember I had three very small children in tow, and I had to go find them, and their Google My Business address was not right.
00:12:09 [Alison]
And I could visit uh-huh.
00:12:11 [Alison]
Uh-huh.
00:12:12 [Alison]
And their old address was in this lovely professional park, Main road with other businesses around it, you know, other somewhere I would want to be with my small children going to to do taxes.

00:12:21 [Alison]
And they had said, hey.
00:12:23 [Alison]
This is our new address.
00:12:24 [Alison]
We just moved.

00:12:24 [Melissa]
I think we wanna talk to you guys too about we’ll pivot now from our horror stories to, like, ways that you can save on your taxes and deductions that you don’t wanna miss out on and that you may not necessarily think of.
00:12:36 [Melissa]
I mean, some people probably this will be a list where they’re like, check, check, check.
00:12:39 [Melissa]
Yep.
00:12:39 [Melissa]
I’ve got all of those.
00:12:40 [Melissa]
But if you’re newer and stuff, you may not realize some of those things.

00:12:43 [Melissa]
For me, the first one is always like a home office, your home office deduct and it used to scare me because you’ll read things that say, oh, people who do home office deductions have a higher rate of being audited.
00:12:54 [Melissa]
Well, I have a legitimate home office.
00:12:56 [Melissa]
Like, this is not so go ahead.
00:12:58 [Melissa]
Audit me.
00:12:59 [Melissa]
Come in.

00:12:59 [Melissa]
Come check out my office.
00:13:00 [Melissa]
I’ll send you pictures, all of that kind of stuff.
00:13:02 [Melissa]
So you wanna look at what’s the space in your home that is set aside for your home office and make sure you measure it.
00:13:08 [Melissa]
And then it’s counted as, like, a percentage of your house type thing.
00:13:11 [Melissa]
So then Yeah.

00:13:11 [Melissa]
Some of your house bills and stuff, you can actually deduct through that home office deduction.
00:13:16 [Melissa]
So we’re not gonna get into, like, how you stuff.
00:13:18 [Melissa]
We’re just gonna let you know what these are, and then you guys can figure it out with your tax professional.
00:13:22 [Melissa]
But definitely ask your tax professional about a home office deduction if you don’t have a studio somewhere else, if your studio is in your home.
00:13:28 [Melissa]
And don’t forget too with the home office, you may be thinking about your main home office, but if you’re storing things in another closet or another room in the house, don’t forget to add that square footage too wherever that storage is.

00:13:39 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:13:40 [Alison]
And you think about all the expenses of running a house at a home office, water, electricity, Internet, all the things.
00:13:45 [Alison]
Like, it can add up pretty quickly if you’re taking a percentage of all of that.
00:13:48 [Alison]
Okay.
00:13:48 [Alison]
And so these are our top question, guys.

00:13:50 [Alison]
I have a whole list.
00:13:51 [Alison]
It’s eight pages long of potential deductions that may apply to you.
00:13:54 [Alison]
I’m gonna put the link in the show notes so that you can get that free download and get more details about some of these things.
00:13:59 [Alison]
So the next one is mileage.
00:14:00 [Alison]
I think we all understand mileage going to and from a session, but the hidden deductions are things that are equally as important.

00:14:09 [Alison]
Going to and from driving for scouting locations.
00:14:12 [Alison]
I know this was big in cherry blossom season when I was going to my locations and just checking the buds almost every week and sometimes every other day.
00:14:18 [Alison]
There’s a lot of time you’re spending in the car going back and forth to check what it looks like.
00:14:22 [Alison]
Well, how does the sun look?
00:14:23 [Alison]
What’s the timing like?

00:14:24 [Alison]
Are the buds are the buds blooming yet?
00:14:26 [Alison]
Have we reached x stage yet?
00:14:28 [Alison]
So don’t forget those.
00:14:29 [Alison]
When I was in Virginia, I would also rent lenses in Norfolk.
00:14:32 [Alison]
So I was in Virginia Beach.

00:14:33 [Alison]
I would drive thirty, forty five minutes sometimes to go rent a lens in person to not have to mail it and mail it back.
00:14:40 [Alison]
That can be count as as mileage.
00:14:41 [Alison]
So scouting, anything, dropping off client work, picking up wardrobe.
00:14:46 [Alison]
I saw on Instagram one of my friends back in Virginia Beach, she actually delivers wardrobe and then goes and picks it up pre and post her photo sessions, which I thought was that’s a lot of driving.
00:14:55 [Alison]
Holy cow.

00:14:56 [Alison]
That is all mileage that’s deductible.
00:14:59 [Alison]
Right?
00:14:59 [Alison]
So think about all those little things that are work related that aren’t necessarily going to and from a shoot, to and from the studio, or what have you, and include that in your mileage.

00:15:09 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:15:11 [Melissa]
Hey, quick break to tell you about something that could change your business.
00:15:13 [Melissa]
One of my students, London, was stuck relying on referrals and social media before she joined Found and Booked my SEO group coaching program.
00:15:21 [Melissa]
Less than a year later, she’s ranking on page one of Google, raised her prices, and left her 6 figure job to go full time with photography.
00:15:28 [Melissa]
If you want results like that, I’m hosting a free master class called the five SEO mistakes killing your photography business.

00:15:34 [Melissa]
I’ll tell you what’s keeping you invisible on Google and how to fix it.
00:15:38 [Melissa]
The link to register is in the show notes or head to pictureperfectrankings.com/mistakes.
00:15:45 [Melissa]
Next up is another one that can be hidden a little bit.

00:15:48 [Alison]
Yes.

00:15:48 [Melissa]
And that’s payment processing fees.
00:15:50 [Melissa]
We all groan when we look and see, like, oh, they paid via credit card.
00:15:54 [Melissa]
So now, you know, you got 3% plus, what, 29¢ or whatever it is for, you know, taking a credit card and stuff.
00:16:00 [Melissa]
That and while, yes, we would all prefer to have cash or check, that processing fees are deductible, but here’s where it trips you up.
00:16:06 [Melissa]
Because it gets deducted before you even get the money, it can be really a pain in the butt to something that you’re gonna get.

00:16:14 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:16:14 [Melissa]
And Stripe, it used to be a huge pain in the butt to find where those fees were.
00:16:18 [Melissa]
I feel like PayPal wasn’t as bad.
00:16:20 [Melissa]
But if you have stuff through Stripe or Square or PayPal, you’re gonna wanna go in log in to your account and go figure out what were your processing fees for the year.
00:16:29 [Melissa]
And then you need to add those as an expense to whatever your expense spreadsheet is or your QuickBooks or whatever like that.

00:16:35 [Melissa]
If you have QuickBooks, it may automatically have that in there.
00:16:37 [Melissa]
I’m not count it my or sorry.
00:16:39 [Melissa]
My bookkeeper does it for me.
00:16:41 [Melissa]
So, actually, I’ll give a shout out to my bookkeeper, Jenny of Foxtrot Bookkeeping.
00:16:45 [Melissa]
We’ll include a link for her in the show notes too because she handles it all for me, so I don’t have to worry about it.

00:16:50 [Melissa]
But I remember the days of trying to go and find out where it was and download the CSV file and then add that to my spreadsheet of what the processing fees were.
00:16:58 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:16:58 [Melissa]
Because it does.
00:16:59 [Melissa]
I mean, that that’s income that you didn’t significant.

00:17:01 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:17:02 [Alison]
And that’s why it’s hidden is because it the way I have my my banking and finances set up is that it never actually hits QuickBooks because take Stripe takes their portion before it ever is paid out.
00:17:13 [Alison]
It’s not listed in my QuickBooks as an expense.
00:17:15 [Alison]
So I I do have to manually go retrieve it and add it in.
00:17:19 [Alison]
And it’s thousands of dollars depending on how much you’re charging and how many sessions you’re doing.

00:17:23 [Alison]
So it’s very significant and worth your effort to go pull that.
00:17:26 [Alison]
So hidden payment processing fees, banking fees, PayPal, Stripe, whatever you’re using, everybody’s getting their their share of your business.
00:17:33 [Alison]
Okay?
00:17:33 [Alison]
So deduct it.
00:17:35 [Alison]
Yep.

00:17:35 [Alison]
The next one.
00:17:36 [Alison]
Okay.
00:17:36 [Alison]
So advertising.
00:17:38 [Alison]
Advertising deductions are a really big.
00:17:41 [Alison]
And so what you wanna think about is not just what you spent on meta ads, retargeting ads, or Google AdWords, but your website is advertising.

00:17:49 [Alison]
Getting your copy done for your website, redesigning your website, SEO services so that it shows up is advertising.
00:17:56 [Alison]
In addition to more traditional things like business cards or sample sample artwork.
00:18:01 [Alison]
I know we talked to some photographers this year about creating sample albums and leaving them or taking them to venues.
00:18:07 [Alison]
That’s advertising and marketing.
00:18:09 [Alison]
Anything physical or digital to advertise yourself, not just the actual ad dollars behind it, is marketing and advertising expenses.

00:18:17 [Alison]
Get really creative here.
00:18:18 [Alison]
Sponsoring a kid’s sport.
00:18:20 [Alison]
Back in Virginia, I had a big old sign put at our baseball field, and I sponsored a field, plus $300.
00:18:25 [Alison]
That’s an advertising expense.

00:18:27 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:18:27 [Melissa]
And in fact, I overheard somebody doing this at our flag football practice last night, and my first thought was, oh, I wonder if she gets a backlink on their website for that.
00:18:34 [Melissa]
Because that can be a great way, guys, where you can, you know, hey.
00:18:37 [Melissa]
You’re doing something good for your community.
00:18:39 [Melissa]
You’re sponsoring your kid’s sport.

00:18:40 [Melissa]
And then if they give you a backlink on the website, which I would a 100% negotiate a fee, that can be good because it’s a community backlink for you.
00:18:48 [Melissa]
And it’s not that you’re paying for the backlink, although I would probably be doing it to, like, pay for the backlink, and the bonus would be sponsoring my kids’ sport.
00:18:54 [Melissa]
But it’s a great way to help with your SEO too.
00:18:56 [Melissa]
And it’s not just kids’ sports.
00:18:58 [Melissa]
It could be a charity event or just something in your area, something through your church, something through your school, there’s a lot of ways that you can sponsor that stuff.

00:19:06 [Melissa]
Again, negotiate that backlink and write it off for your advertising.

00:19:09 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:19:09 [Alison]
Similar but different.
00:19:10 [Alison]
Our civic league in our neighborhood so Virginia Beach didn’t have HOAs.
00:19:14 [Alison]
We had civic leagues and business directory of businesses that lived in our neighborhood, and we just asked for a donation to the league and gave out backlinks.
00:19:21 [Alison]
So, like, I think it was, like, $50 advertising, guys.

00:19:25 [Alison]
Advertising.
00:19:26 [Alison]
And you’re advertising to the people around you, so that was kind of a cool thing.
00:19:29 [Alison]
They’re like, oh, what businesses exist here?
00:19:30 [Alison]
That’s this is cool.
00:19:31 [Alison]
Same but different, but advertising dollars are are really big, so get them all.

00:19:36 [Melissa]
And then the last thing we’re gonna talk about for top five that again, Allison’s got a list of a ton more, and we couldn’t cover them all.
00:19:42 [Melissa]
But to me, this was for the longest time, this was like a huge deduction for me, and it was continuing education.
00:19:46 [Melissa]
Workshops that you take, any retreats that you go on, any courses that you Workshops that you take, any retreats that you go on, any courses that you purchase, all of that stuff that you’re using to further your business and learn more, obviously, that is all business expenses for continuing education.
00:19:59 [Melissa]
And so that’s something too that, for me, it made me feel a little bit better about, hey.
00:20:03 [Melissa]
As a business owner, I need to do continuing education.

00:20:06 [Melissa]
If I worked in the corporate world in IT still, they would expect me to continue to get certifications, continue to get classes and things like that, and they would pay for them because they’re writing them off.
00:20:16 [Melissa]
And it just it’s gonna better you as a business too.
00:20:18 [Melissa]
So when you’re thinking about, oh, where do I wanna spend my money?
00:20:21 [Melissa]
Sometimes it’s not the latest and greatest lens that just came out.
00:20:24 [Melissa]
Sometimes it’s a course on marketing or shooting or editing or an in person or something like that that can just fill your soul and get you in contact with the right people, that type of stuff.

00:20:34 [Melissa]
And so for me, like I said, that was always a that was, like, my biggest line item, typically.
00:20:38 [Melissa]
Yeah.

00:20:39 [Alison]
That includes the workshop that I’m hosting next month on blogging, advertising.
00:20:44 [Alison]
Hello.
00:20:45 [Alison]
Continuing education to advertise.
00:20:46 [Alison]
Right?
00:20:47 [Alison]
And same if you didn’t do the map out your marketing, blogging is the next step.

00:20:50 [Alison]
So I would say, go back and get the recording for map out your marketing, write it off as a continuing continuing education expense, map out your marketing for the year, work on your business, and come at the April workshop with a plan, with some ideas.
00:21:03 [Alison]
Guys, just to remind you, we are not tax professionals.
00:21:06 [Alison]
We this is just for informational and educational purposes.

00:21:09 [Melissa]
Information with your accountant.

00:21:10 [Alison]
So this is not advice.
00:21:12 [Alison]
This is not talk to your own people.
00:21:15 [Alison]
Talk to your own tax professional in your area.
00:21:17 [Alison]
We cannot take responsibility for anything that may or may not work here.
00:21:21 [Alison]
We are just talking

00:21:21 [Melissa]
to our attorneys.
00:21:22 [Melissa]
Be able to walk in and talk to your accountant and feel like, oh, I know a few things.
00:21:26 [Melissa]
I can check a few things.
00:21:28 [Melissa]
I understand a few things because it can save you.
00:21:30 [Melissa]
I’m not saying walk in and tell your accountant how to I’m saying for the ten ninety nine issue, I messaged my accountant and I said, hey.

00:21:36 [Melissa]
How do I handle this?
00:21:37 [Melissa]
Because I don’t wanna pay double taxes on this.
00:21:39 [Melissa]
And he was like, oh, okay.
00:21:40 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:21:41 [Melissa]
This is what we’ll do.

00:21:42 [Melissa]
And so it was very simple.
00:21:43 [Melissa]
If I didn’t raise that with him, he may not have realized it because he’s like, you turned in the papers.
00:21:47 [Melissa]
Yep.
00:21:47 [Melissa]
Yeah.
00:21:47 [Melissa]
All of this is stuff.

00:21:48 [Melissa]
Vet it with your accountant.
00:21:49 [Melissa]
Talk to them about everything.
00:21:51 [Melissa]
We’re hoping that it helps you, you know, just be aware of more stuff that you can you can deduct or issues that might come up.

00:21:56 [Alison]
Yeah.
00:21:57 [Alison]
And there are so many more deductions.
00:21:58 [Alison]
I have an eight page guide to possible expenses and deductions that you may qualify for at as a photographer.
00:22:05 [Alison]
So we’re gonna have the link in the show notes.
00:22:06 [Alison]
I want you to get that guide and make sure review it, check it off, make sure you’ve thought about all the things.

00:22:11 [Alison]
It’s great for brainstorming, ideating, all of these little nuances and variations of some big ticket deductions.
00:22:18 [Alison]
So thanks for listening, guys, and, hope you learned something.

00:22:22 [Melissa]
Bye bye.
00:22:25 [Melissa]
Thank you so much for listening.
00:22:26 [Melissa]
If you’re enjoying the show, would you do two things for us?
00:22:29 [Melissa]
First, leave a review.
00:22:30 [Melissa]
Just stars would be awesome.

00:22:32 [Melissa]
And two, forward this episode to a biz bestie knows anyone facing moving their business.
00:22:37 [Melissa]
We’d love it if you shared this episode with even just one person.
00:22:40 [Melissa]
If you have questions, you can reach out to Allison on Instagram at Allison Bell Photog, or you can find me, Melissa, in my Facebook group, Picture Perfect Rankings.
00:22:49 [Melissa]
Check the show notes for links, and we’re so excited to have you guys here.