yourbeliefsarenotforme

[yourbeliefsarenotforme]

TAXES - The basics

“Do camgirls have to pay taxes?”

Yes, yes we do.

“Actually? Like I HAVE to?”

Yes. You have to - if you don’t, you could pay a fat fee at best, or go to jail for tax evasion at worst. While none of us like paying taxes, doing so is mandatory - not a suggestion or something any of us should be trying to sneak past or avoid. Here’s the basics of what you should do to make paying taxes as painless (and as minimal!) as possible, coming from someone who has stressed way more than necessary about taxes too many times.

1. Save 25% of all income for tax.

Each pay period, put aside a quarter of your earnings into a separate account so you can pay your taxes without stressing about it at the end of the year. I suggest a totally separate bank account from the one you usually use to prevent yourself from spending it if you’re as bad with money as I am. Depending on where you live, how much you make and how much you can write off you may owe more or less than 25% of your yearly earnings, but saving this 25% will more or less have you prepared for tax season when it arrives.

For years I knew I SHOULD have done this, but didn’t. This was short sighted and dumb, because it meant that every March I was left scrambling to make thousands of dollars to pay my tax bill, which lead to tears, stress, bad business ethics while I was online (being demanding, short of patience and all around not very entertaining) while also looking like an incompetent camgirl in general. Emergency “help me pay my taxes” funds are not sexy or cute. Don’t do what I did. Save that 25%. Trust me.

2. Keep all receipts.

You can write off a great deal of your purchases, service bills and rent since you are a) a model, b) who works online, c) from your house. Keep receipts for anything and everything beauty related - makeup, hair, tattoos, cosmetic surgery, gym passes, personal trainers, nails, etc. Keep receipts for anything you wear or use on cam - lingerie, sex toys, paddles, giant inflatable dicks, whatever. Keep receipts for all tech - webcams, cameras, computers, microphones, lighting. Keep receipts for all cam room supplies - furniture, decorations, craft supplies, glitter oil, bla bla bla. You get the picture: if it maintains or enhances your physical beauty or if you use it/see it while you cam, it’s probably a write off — IF you have a receipt. You can also calculate which percentage of your home you use for work and portion off what percentage of your rent or mortgage payments are - I just don’t suggest writing it off 100%, because to have to be able to potentially prove that the space is a dedicated work space to make it a business expense. While I do bath shows, I won’t write off my bathroom square footage, for example, because it would be hard to argue my bathroom was primarily a work space, lol.

Receipts you might not think of, come tax season: apps and digital bills. If you pay for VSCO premium or phone video editing apps, for example, these count toward your tax write offs. Make sure to print out the Apple/Google store billing receipts to give to your tax accountant.

3. Hire a tax accountant

Taxes are complicated. If done poorly, you could be wasting money you should otherwise be able to save — or you could be breaking the law by missing something you have to pay for. Ultimately it’s best to hire an accountant so you save the most while being sure that your taxes are done properly. As tempting as it may be to go to a cheap service like H&R block, I strongly suggest visiting a tax professional - seasonal tax employees are just entering in numbers to a computer program, and are NOT tax professionals. A good tax accountant will be well versed in all of the awesome breaks and “loopholes”, to put them bluntly, that you’ll be legally able to use to bring your tax bill down as far as possible while still playing by the rules.

Bonus suggestion - set up a tax free savings account with your bank, if possible. All savings put into one of these bad boys will help you bring your taxable income down, easing the pain of tax season overall.