Tax Deductions for Wedding Photographers and Filmmakers
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 ก.พ. 2025
- Let’s talk about tax deductions for wedding photographers.
The last week of the year is actually a pretty important week in your self-employed tax life. It’s the last opportunity to get those precious write-offs included for the year. Some of you might be wondering what the term “deduction” means, and others might not be sure what counts as a deduction or why they’re important.
Let’s answer and unpack this idea together.
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As an accountant for photographers, I love this great job dispelling misunderstandings..
One thing people CAN do is introduce all their gear they didn't write off prior. So you can write off all the gear and depreciation at once.
I'm considering launching as a biz and introduce my 20K worth of hobby level gear depreciated over 5 years.
Also you can amend old tax years. Let's say you were in business and didn't write off stuff a few years back, you can. introduce that.
I recommend always talking to a tax professional who does this.
very helpful thanks !!
Great points! Tax write offs are great and all, but you’re still spending money. Plus the less income you show on taxes (after deductions) is a negative for getting things like mortgages etc.
Exactly… super annoying to say, but paying taxes is “good”. Means you’re making an income :)
Glad I was able to find your video. You answered my question perfectly. Thank you!
thank you for this! suuuper helpful!!!
Thank you ! I really needed to learn this, I was stressing stressing !
Hey man, thanks for the video! We need a follow up now. :)
Quick question I’ve spent over 20k in lenses lights and camera, got my LLC. How ever my income has maybe totaled only about 1000 so far this year. What tax deductions am I looking at?
It really depends on what else you have going on, but assuming the only two transactions you have are the ones you listed, you'll capitalize any expenses >$1000 and deduct those items over 5-7 years depending on what they are.
I wanted to ask you something. As a wedding photographer, I offer photo and video packages. I have a company LLC so when I need video I ask my friend the videographer who also has LLC to work on the wedding with me. So the contract is under my company name, clients pay me, and then I pay my friend videographer. My question is since I am not earning the whole amount of the package how do I do my taxes if I am paying someone else for the service. I hope you understand what I mean!
Good question. You would record all the income you receive from the client as income on your tax return, and then you'd record the amount you pay your videographer friend as contractors expense. The expense will offset the income and you'll end up with only the net amount being taxed. Make sense?
@@hellobrandonscott thank you so much my friend I really appreciate you replying!
What about federal taxes???
If you're more specific I can try and help, but overall that's topic is insanely broad.
@@hellobrandonscott Thank you for responding! The self employment tax rate is 15.3% but federal income tax is like 22%. does that mean I am paying 37% total in taxes? The video indicates that I will only be paying around 15.3% total in taxes.
@@gennaf041 Sort of. SE tax is comprised of social security tax (currently 12.4%) and medicare (currently 2.9%). If you were working for someone as a W-2 wage earner, half of those are paid by your employer and half by you. Since you work for yourself as a self-employed person, you pay both halves. However, you get to deduct half too, just as an employer would deduct the half they pay for you to work for them. Make sense? All that to say, a deduction doesn't mean the expense goes away entirely, more just...discounted, in a way (you know this from the video though) so it's not a clean 37%, but it's close. There are thresholds and limits that complicate the math, and if you're an S-Corp, that's a whole other thing regarding SE taxes, but overall, yeah, 35-ish is a good ballpark estimate. Don't forget state payroll and income taxes too.
@@hellobrandonscott makes sense, thank you. A couple of my friends are full time freelancers with LLC's and they both said they only pay between 15%-20% in taxes. How would that be possible given the additional federal income tax?
@@gennaf041 hard to know for sure without having more context, but I’ve often found people underestimate and exaggerate all the time haha. They’re not playing by any separate tax code, same for everyone. And if they’re basically a sole proprietor but have an LLC, they’re probably paying even more than they would had they just remained a schedule C taxpayer since most states have an additional LLC fee (CA, for example, is an extra $800 annually). Lots of people getting on that LLC hype train when it’s really not the best entity type for most of them.
Thanks for the video
Nice!