- Hey, everybody.
This is Roberto Blake, helping you
create something awesome today.
Welcome back to the channel.
Today we're gonna talk about some YouTube tax tips
that I got from my friends over at TurboTax
and their certified public accountants over there.
But for those of you who have no idea who I am
and you're just tuning in because of what this video is,
welcome, my name is Roberto Blake,
I'm a creative entrepreneur, a public speaker
at events like VidCon and VidSummit
and I do a lot of videos that can help
the YouTube community because I believe
in supporting creative people and entrepreneurs,
and if you're a YouTuber, you're probably both.
And the reason you've had
so much trouble finding information
on YouTube tax tips is because most people
aren't qualified to give you that information.
It's always a good idea to get tax advice
from a credentialed expert
like a certified public accountant,
enrolled agent, or tax attorney.
And that's why TurboTax is sponsoring this video today
and the wonderful team over there helped me
with all this research and giving me this information
so that I can pass it on to you
as a YouTube creator that needs to navigate
their tax situation.
So tip number one, one of the most important things
you can do when it comes to your taxes
is plan ahead.
And this is something a lot of YouTubers take for granted.
When it comes to planning ahead,
you need to be tracking all of your expenses,
all of those day to day things,
whether it being camera equipment, camera lenses,
whether you're traveling to do a collab,
you need to be tracking these expenses.
I'm gonna recommend QuickBooks Self-Employed,
it is from the same great people at Intuit
that make TurboTax, they work seamlessly together,
but I'm using this to track my expenses
and it makes it easier to figure out those deductions later
and it imports directly into TurboTax Self-Employed.
So using these in combination is a great idea
if you want to track your expenses
and get all of your deductions that you're entitled to.
When you don't keep track of this stuff,
you end up missing opportunities to save money
and it's also just a good best practice
for you day to day in terms of your bookkeeping
so that you know how much money you have going out
versus how much money you have coming in.
I think this is one of the first fundamentals
of being an entrepreneur and if you're doing YouTube
and you're self-employed, you need to be thinking that way.
Tip number two is to educate yourself
about what deductions you are entitled to.
People end up paying more taxes than they need to
because they don't know what deductions they can even claim
and they miss out on opportunities
just like you want to get the best deal
that you can on new camera gear,
just you do research for the topics of your YouTube videos,
a lot of people don't bother to do any research
about what deductions they can take
and as a YouTuber, it's not traditional employment.
So I know that the information is hard to come by
and that's why we're doing this video.
So here are some deductions that you're probably overlooking
that you could claim on your taxes.
So if you're a YouTuber working for home,
then you should really look at getting
the home office deduction, the simplified
home office deduction and taking that $1,500 there
because that's gonna be the least complicated way
to the calculations and to figure this out.
And that's gonna help you because if you're spending
on electricity, if you're spending on internet
and all of these things to make your videos
in your home office,
then you absolutely qualify for that deduction
and you should take it.
Here something a lot of people don't realize,
your camera gear, your laptop, so your microphones,
all the things that you use to produce your videos,
if they're being used exclusively for the business,
then those things are actually deductible
when it comes to your taxes.
So you should just feel free to go ahead and claim those.
And earlier we mentioned that your internet cost
are deductible but it's not limited to the expense
of your internet in your home.
If you're working out of a hotel,
if you're working out of a plane,
if you're paying for that Wi-Fi access for your business,
then that's something you can claim on your taxes too
as well as any of your travel expenses.
So for those of you who like to do collaborations,
this is gonna be extremely important,
you can actually deduct a lot of those expenses.
Most YouTubers don't realize that they can actually
deduct the cost of their cellphones.
If you're using your cellphone exclusively
for your business, then you can deduct it.
If you use it 50% for business
and 50% for personal, you can actually deduct
up to half of it.
One of the things that I do as you guys well know
is that I have multiple cellphones.
I can't seem to help myself when Apple releases
a new smartphone.
The good news is that means I can have a personal line
and I can have a business line
and so I get to claim a 100% of whatever I'm paying
on my business line and the purchase of my business phone
and then I get to claim the 50% against the personal side.
So just being able to separate things in your business
from your personal life in general is very smart
and it just streamlines the process
when it comes to managing your tax situation.
Some of you are still paying student loans
as a YouTuber and believe it or not,
there is a way that this impacts you
with regard to your taxes.
In fact, you might be able to save money
by taking the student loan deduction
which can be up to $2,500,
that is a big deal when it comes to savings
on being taxed on your income
as a full-time content creator.
So just something you should know.
Let's talk a little bit about savings and retirement.
It's something that people don't think about.
One day, you're probably going to retire.
You're not gonna make YouTube videos
for the rest of your life.
You probably might not even run your business
for the rest of your life if you do something else.
You're gonna want to retire and that means
putting money away and the good news
is as you save for your retirement,
those things aren't taxed right away.
So in addition to playing the long game,
retirement has a few short term perks to it.
If you're a self-employed person,
that means that you are allowed to have a SEP-IRA
and you can actually contribute a lot more
of your income to this than you could a traditional IRA.
For 2018, you can actually contribute up to $55,000
or 25% of your overall income, whichever one is less.
For 2019, it's $56,000.
And a little known fact, you can actually contribute
to your SEP-IRA all the way up until the tax deadline.
So this is something you might wanna look
into a little bit more.
Contributions to your 401k
can also lower your taxable income.
They can also be lucrative
because of compound interest overtime.
Einstein said the most powerful force
in the universe is compound interest.
If you're able to, you should absolutely max out your 401k
and that is up to $19,000 in 2019
and if you're over 50, then it's up to $25,000.
So definitely make sure you're taking advantage
of these deductions.
I want to thank my friends over at TurboTax
for putting together such great information.
There's a lot here that even I didn't realize
so they're gonna save me money on top of everything else.
So that's great.
Really proud that they're a sponsor
because this is a topic that is so important
to the YouTube community.
We really need to learn more about our taxes
and about fiscal discipline and about really treating this
like a business because there's so much opportunity
and a lot of us are finally being able
to go full-time and do this for a living.
So I'm really glad that they helped out
with this particular video.
With TurboTax Live Self-Employed,
you can get year round access to unlimited tax advice
and guidance from real CPAs.
So I really think you guys should check them out.
Use TurboTax Self-Employed and I'll link that for you guys
down in the description so make sure
you're taking advantage of that.
I think this will help you if you are feeling overwhelmed
by the prospect of handling your taxes this year.
And just remember, with TurboTax Live Self-Employed,
you can directly talk to a certified public accountant
and they can really help you with navigating
any questions you have much better
than someone like myself so
you're gonna wanna ask them those questions
and get real answers.
Question of the day, are you a full-time YouTuber
or are you a hobby creator
and what are you dealing with
in terms of treating YouTube
more like a business?
I would really love to know and hear from you
in the comments section.
Like this video if you liked it.
Don't forget to subscribe.
Check out the other awesome stuff on the channel.
Don't forget, you can check out TurboTax Self-Employed,
link is in the description.
As always you guys, thanks so very much for watching
and don't forget, go out there
and create something awesome today.
Take care.