Write-Offs Most Creators Miss

Speaker A00:00:00

Hey, stop scrolling for just one second because I'm going to say something that might make you uncomfortable. Today, most creators are paying more tax than they really need to. And it's not because you're careless. And it's not because you're cheating.And trust me, it's not because you're bad with money. It's because nobody ever showed you how write offs really work in creator life. And worse than that, you don't even know what you're missing.Let me ask you something. Have you ever filed your taxes and thought, I hope this is right. Have you ever looked at your tax return and felt relief but not confidence?Might be saying, okay, I survived this, but you didn't really know if you left money on the table. Here's the truth. Creators miss write offs because creator business doesn't look like a normal business.As I've talked about before, your income jumps around, those expenses blur. And your work overlaps with life, doesn't it? And the rules, hey, those rules are written for someone else. So today's video is not some quick tip.This is a clown master class. Like, we're sitting across the desk from each other. This isn't about judgment. It's certainly not about fear.And it's certainly not you should have known better. Today's just about clarity. Because write offs aren't on a list. They're a system. And when you understand the system, taxes stop being a guessing game.You start making decisions like a real business owner. And that's the goal. Today I'm going to show you how the write offs most traders miss and the decision process that helps you spot them.I'm going to do it in a way that feels audit ready, calm and clean. And I warn you now, by the end of this episode, you're going to realize something. There are a lot more moving parts than you thought.Now, I'm not saying this to scare you. I just want to wake you up a little bit. Because crater taxes aren't hard because you're dumb. They're hard because crater business is real business.So if you've been guessing, if you've been hoping, if you've been telling yourself, I'll deal with it later. Today is your wake up call. Not with a panic, but with a plan. Sound good? Good. Let's get right to it. Hey, I'm Ralph Estep Jr.I'm a licensed accountant with over 30 years of experience. I'm also a business coach and I'm a working content creator just like you. So today is not about IRS code or some textbook about tax write offs.I live this. I have those uneven months, those platform payouts that are hard to figure out. I live through the gear upgrades and subscriptions everywhere.I've got the editors to pay and software to manage. And just like you, I got one month that feels amazing. And the next month feels super tight.And the confusing part, you can be growing and still feel financially unsure, can't you? And it's not because you're failing. It's because nobody taught you how crater money actually works, especially with taxes. And the Internet.The Internet gives you loud advice. You hear this Write off everything. Or maybe you hear this one, don't write off anything, just get an LLC that'll fix it.But today, you don't need loud. You just need clear. And my job is simple. What I do here is I translate taxes into creator language so you can build a creator business that lasts.This is a safe space. This isn't about lectures, no scare tactics, and certainly no shame. Just a comma explanation with real examples and a system that you can understand.And listen. Before we go any further, creators reach out to me all the time about these write offs because write offs feel like a minefield.They ask me questions like, if I deduct this, Ralph, is it okay? Hey, Ralph, what if I get audited? Am I doing it wrong? And this one? This is a whopper. Am I leaving money on the table?If you want me to look at your numbers, I'm talking about your payouts, your platforms, your expenses, and help you get clear on what applies just to you. Here's what you can do. Go to contentcreatorsaccountant.com/helpme. Again, that's content creators. Accountant.com Helpme. That's not a sales call.It's clarity. We'll look at what's happening, we'll calm the chaos, and you'll leave with a plan. No pressure, just relief.Keep that link in mind, because halfway through this episode, you might realize, Ralph, this is bigger than I thought. And that's okay. Let's get talking about braid offs. Write offs confuse content creators for one big reason. Your life overlaps with your business.Truth is, your phone is everything. Your laptop, that's your studio, your house. For a lot of us, that's our office.And for so many of us, your car becomes the recording studio or the set. And nobody explains where the line actually is.So for you, you either write off nothing because you're scared of getting audited, or you write off everything and just hope for the best. Neither feels good. Right. But before I move on, this is a great time to comment about some of the crazy tax advice you've ever received.Feel free to leave those in the comments. All right, let's get back to those write offs. And most tax advice wasn't built for creators. It was built for normal businesses.You know, the people with offices and employees and a clear separation between business and personal. We don't have that, do we? We've got creator chaos. And chaos needs clarity, not judgment. So I'm going to give you some clarity.Not the kind of clarity that makes you feel like you have to memorize tax law. That's not what I'm going to do today. But I want to give you the kind of clarity, it helps you make decisions without guessing.Because here's the truth. When you miss write offs, you overpay your taxes. Sometimes it's by hundreds of dollars.I've seen returns where sometimes it's by thousands of dollars. Guess what? You don't get that money back. Or this one. You deduct the wrong things.And you're anxious every single year, just waiting for a letter, hoping nothing comes up. And the worst part? Fixing it later is always harder. And guess what? It's usually expensive. Too messy.Records, reconstructing expenses, trying to remember what something was for a year ago. And this part matters. When you don't track correctly, you don't just overpay tax. You lose confidence. And when you lose confidence, you.You hesitate to hire that person. You hesitate to invest in your business, and you hesitate to scale because you don't trust the numbers.And if you don't trust your numbers, you'll always feel behind. All right, it's masterclass time. People ask me all the time for a list of write offs. They say, Ralph, just send me a list of write offs.Give me something to work with. But the problem is there is no write offs lists. It's more of a decision engine. And if you learn the engine, you. You stop guessing.I call it the five Ps. We're going to jump right into this. The five Ps are purpose, proof, percentage, placement, and pattern.I want to talk through each of these like a creator. Let's start with purpose. What did this help you do? Did it help you create? Did it help you deliver something? Did it help you grow your business?If you can't answer that, why are we deducting it? So that's where it starts. Let's move on to proof. Proof is pretty straightforward, isn't it? Can you back it up? Do you have a receipt?Is there a statement? Do you have an invoice? And here's the twist. Receipts are evidence, but records tell the story. A note matters. A clean trail matters.How about percentage? This one trips up content creators all the time.When you use something fancy called mixed use, think about when you used your phone the last time you used it for content and you used it personally. The Internet. You're doing both things, aren't you? Your laptop, that's your recording studio, your home, that's where your office is.And like I talked about earlier, your vehicle for so many content creators. That's the set. And if it's mixed, you start wondering, what part of this is truly business. Ralph, let's move on the placement. Where does it belong?Now, what I'm talking about here is things like gear. Gear is not software. Software isn't contractors, and contractors aren't supplies.And when you do this on your tax return, misplacing those expenses creates chaos later because the IRS is wondering, what is he talking about here? And then pattern. Does it match your workflow? Your content model? Your weekly reality?I want to give you three quick examples because it's easy to talk about things in theory, but let's talk about example 1. A lens for your camera. Let's work through the five Ps. Let's talk about the purpose. Lens for your camera. Sure. Better content.Like right now I'm filming in 4K because I just upgraded my camera to give better things. So purpose makes sense, right? How about proof, a receipt and a statement? Sure. I bought that from Amazon. I've got the receipt.I've got a statement showing where I paid for it. How about percentage? Percentage is usually clean on this one. You're not going to use this camera for other things. Maybe occasionally you will.How about placement? It's all part of the production equipment. It's what leads to what you're watching on the screen right now. And pattern.It fills my weekly filming, doesn't it? See, that one's easy. The camera makes sense. Let's move on to example two. That phone upgrade. Everybody likes the new phone when it comes out.I'm kind of a nerd. I got to have the latest iPhone. But let's talk about that one. Let's work through the five Ps we're talking about a phone purpose.You shoot, you edit your post. Well, that makes sense, doesn't it? How about proof? Proof on this one's pretty easy.You've got your carrier invoice and you've got the Bill percentage. We're going to talk about this a little bit later, but this one is mixed use and sometimes you need this, sometimes you don't. How about placement?To me, that one goes under communications and pattern. It features your daily business use because maybe you're filming with it, you're responding to messages, you're scheduling things with it.Pretty straightforward on the phone. But we might need to talk about that Mixed use percentage. Let's go to example three. And that's paying an editor.Let's work through the five P's purpose. Hey, great. You're paying them because you're looking for the end output. You're looking for that final takeaway. Here's your proof.You've got an invoice and you've got a payment record. Just like me. I work with a team. I can prove that I've paid them. I've got a credit card receipt, I've got an invoice from them.I've got notes showing what they've done for me. Let's talk about percentage. In this case, it's usually 100%. I don't know, too many editors that are full in your laundry are doing your wash for you.Let's talk about placement. Placement for this one. Contract labor. Now, it could be that you've grown to the point where they're an employee. We could talk about that later.But at this point, placement wise, they're contract labor. Maybe we'll do a show about that. But the whole idea of giving them a 1099, don't miss out on that one.And pattern, this is one that probably shows up monthly, every month you're paying that editor. Maybe they present you with an invoice. You notice what I'm doing here? I'm not asking. You never heard me say, Ralph, can I get away with this?See, a lot of content creators say, well, Ralph, what do you think I can get away with? What's the gray area I can expect? That's not what I'm saying here today. What I'm saying is, can I explain this calmly? See, that's the audit.Ready, thinking. Now let's move into a real creator story of somebody I work with. I work with a YouTuber, strong income, posting constantly.And he bought a top tier laptop, spent 3200 bucks, nice laptop, I would say. And he deducted like half of it. And I asked him why. I said, why did you only deduct half of it?And he said, Ralph, someone on the Internet said, you can't write off the whole thing. But here's the thing. That laptop was his studio.He did his editing there, he did all his uploads there, created those beautiful thumbnails for YouTube. He delivered to his clients and he even wrote his scripts there. So let's work through the five Ps with this particular example. Again, new laptop.The purpose was clear. This is what he's using it for. He's editing, he's creating content, he's responding to emails, he's scheduling things. The proof was easy.He had the receipt from the Apple store where he bought it prove that he paid it percentage. Now here's one we could argue about a little bit. Almost all business use. Does he do it for personal stuff? Occasionally. Let's talk about placement.This is clearly equipment used for production and pattern. It matched his workflow perfectly. This is what he does. He creates YouTube videos. See, he didn't need to fear, he just needed clarity.Let me ask you something right now. How many times have you placed small on deductions because you just weren't sure?How many times have you left money on the table just to avoid feeling risky? See, that right there is why creators message me all the time. Because it's not just write offs, it's confidence.See, that's what we're really talking about today. It's confidence. And if you're sitting there thinking, Ralph, this already feels like a lot to me.Yeah, I told you at the beginning, there's a lot of moving parts here. And the moving parts don't make you bad, they make you normal. So always feel free to reach out to me @ content creatorsaccountant.com/helpme.All right, now it's time to share your comments. I want to throw some questions at you and I would love for you to comment. Here's comment question number one.What's one expense you're scared to deduct? What is that one thing you're like, Rob, I'm just not worried about this. I want you to just name it. Maybe it's your phone, maybe it's your laptop.Hey, home office, we're actually going to talk about that next week. Maybe it's travel or subscriptions.I want you to drop it in the comments because listen, I read every single comment and I will respond to you because it tells me exactly where creators get stuck. All right, now let's go a little deeper because creator Ms. Write offs in places you wouldn't expect.So I'm going to tell you what I call my deduction map. I use with this creators all the time and it starts with seven buckets. And when you see these buckets, you stop missing the quiet stuff.Let's start with bucket one. Production and studio support. Now, I'm not just talking about cameras and microphones. I've got a shotgun mic over here. I got a shure mic over here.You can see the camera because I'm looking at you right now. But think about these things. How about the batteries? The batteries for your camera, your microphones, how about the cables?Because everything, unless you're going all wireless, everything's tied together. Well, as I'm talking to you right now through my prompter, I'm sitting on a tripod. That's something I can write off.The mounts for my lighting, those lighting modifiers, the backdrops behind me, the props and wardrobe, that's truly content specific. Now, we'll talk about that one here in a second, because that one is where creators panic, because you ask.Wait a minute, Ralph, are you telling me I can write off clothes? Let me tell you right now, sometimes no. Sometimes, yes. The difference is purpose. You want to go back to those five Ps again?If it's everyday life clothing that's personal, you can't write it off. But if it's costume, like now, I'm not wearing a costume now I'm wearing a dress shirt, which I'm going to meet with clients later today.That one's probably personal life. But if you're using something that's a costume, maybe on camera specific, maybe it's branded or required, That's a business conversation.Let's move to bucket number two. And that's post production. And people, we kind of alluded to this earlier.These are your editors, the people who are actually putting the final product together. When I record this, I'm going to send it off to my team. They're going to put it together. That's what I call my editors. How about audio cleanup?Whether that be AI tools or. Or maybe you have someone that does the editing for you. How about those thumbnail designers?If you want to get anywhere on YouTube, you got to have an amazing thumbnail. How about video repurposers? Whether it be software or people who create it, we do that with our show.We have somebody that creates the shorts and the reels and the TikTok things. And how about virtual assistants?Hey, as I'm recording right now, my va, Abby and I are having a conversation that's all part of that post production. And people, so if someone touches your content, it's part of your cost to create That's a check mark. That's deductible.Let's move on to bucket three platforms and delivery. Now, this one seems pretty obvious, but people miss these as well. How about your hosting? Now if you're using YouTube, you're not paying for that.But if you've got Captivate or Libsyn or Buzzsprout or one of those podcasting things, that hosting is deductible. How about those distribution tools, things like Repurpose or Patreon or Kit. How about your website? A lot of people miss that one.Your website builds the business, the domain you bought, maybe you've got it from GoDaddy. How about that email platform? If you're using ConvertKit or one of the other Mailchimps or something like that.And listen to this one, a lot of people miss this one. Payment processing fees. If you're collecting money, you've got stripe fees, PayPal fees.See, creators miss these constantly, but those all fit into that third bucket. Let's move on to our fourth bucket. Marketing and growth. Things that you would have here would be spending money for ads, any promotional assets.Maybe you do stickers or you're sending out promos for your show. Maybe you create a landing page, maybe you're giving away lead magnets, or maybe you spent some money and built a brand design kit.All of those things fall into that marketing and growth bucket. Let's look at bucket number five, and this is one a lot of creators miss out on. And that's education and skill building.A lot of content creators say to me, Rob, what do me? I can deduct these things. Yes, you can deduct the courses, you go to workshops you go to. PodFest just ended a couple weeks ago.You can deduct the expenses for that. Those conferences. If you've got a coach. Yes. If a coach is helping you improve your content. I've worked with many coaches. That's deductible.Here's another one a lot of people don't think about. Maybe you belong to a mastermind group. And if that mastermind charges a fee, that's deductible. Because here's the big 30,000 foot view.If it improves your ability to create or to earn, it belongs in the discussion. The IRS would see that and say, oh, that makes sense. Let's talk about bucket number six. And that's travel and on location content.We're going to come back this a little bit later today because travel is where it gets complicated fast. Now let's get to bucket seven and this one gets complicated too. And we're going to talk about a lot this next week.But it's home, office and communications, things like your phone, the Internet. Listen, everything we do is on the Internet. The other day our Internet was out of the office. I didn't know what I was going to do with myself.Workspace cost, a portion of your utilities. Yeah, I got lights on right now. I'm recording. I got electricity going. But make sure that portion truly qualifies.Now, let's talk about the silent killer. Now, if you've listened to me for any time, you know I believe that subscriptions are a silent killer.And creators miss write offs through death by a thousand cuts all the time. And don't just miss them, you forget you're paying for them. Give you a real Crater story.Crater tells me, really, Ralph, I don't even spend that much for my show. And I said, wait a second, I'm a creator too. So I kind of knew what to look for. I said, here's what I want you to do.Give me all your credit card statements and your bank statements. And he said, oh, wait a minute, you're going to really get in deep. I said, yeah, here's what we did. We looked at those things. Guess What?I uncovered 18 subscriptions. Canva, Adobe Descript, stock music plugins. I'm going through a list here. Cloud storage, caption tools, email platform.When I added them all up, guess what that was over $3,000 a year. Now, they weren't broke, but they were untracked. And here's the part that stings. They didn't just miss the write offs, they missed awareness.Because when you don't track it, you can't control it. And when you can't control it, tax season feels like a surprise attack. Nobody needs a surprise attack.So I want to, I want you to hear this Contrast Internet advice says, and we talked about this earlier, Internet advice sometimes says, hey, if you've got content creators, you can write off everything I'm talking. I write off everything. Then you start to think about it like, wait a minute. But audit ready thinking says, write off what you can explain.And one of those things is loud. The Internet is shouting all kinds on Reddit and all these other listservs. Oh, you can write off everything that's shouting loud at you.But that audit ready thinking is like, wait a minute, I want to make sure I'm safe. Now, I want to, I want to clarify something here. Safe doesn't mean timid. It doesn't mean you're not aggressive. Look, I work with accountant people.I work with business people every day. We're content creators, just like you. You can be safe and still be aggressive with this, but safe means clean. And clean is where we end up being.Clean story, clean trail, clean categories, all those five P's I talked about. And categories matter more than you think. Because here's the problem. If you've got bad categories, it creates confusion and creation.Confusion creates fear. And when you have fear, guess what happens? You don't do anything. So here's comment question number two again.I would love to hear what you have to say. What income stream confuses you the most? Is it the AdSense? Is it those sponsors?That affiliate income that seems like it's coming in from 12 different directions? How about the silent killer? Those subscriptions or courses?I want you to drop it in the comments because your income type changes how clean your system needs to be. And yes, this is a moment creators usually reach out to me because they realize, oh, Ralph, wait a minute. This is bigger than I ever thought.That's not shame. That's awareness. And again, you can schedule a call with me right now by going to contentcreatorsaccountant.com/helpme.All right, let's move into our weekly mythbuster section. I want to bust three myths right away, real fast, because these myths are why creators bleed money. And I'm talking about creators.They don't bleed in money. And it's not because you're careless. It's because nobody ever showed you the clean way to do it. Here's myth number one. I'm too small for write offs.Ralph, listen to me. If money came in, expenses matter. Because the IRS doesn't care if you made $1,500 or hear me on this, or $150,000.They care if it's ordinary and necessary for what you do. That's really the big answer to this. The IRS says expenses are ordinary and necessary for what you do.And every creator I ever met has had expenses from day one. Here's what small creators forget. Did you buy a microphone? Oh, yeah. You did, didn't you? Do you have a light?If you're doing anything on YouTube or video, you probably got some lighting. You probably got some editing software. Did you pay for Canva? Do you have Adobe? Did you pay for some stock music as your show started?Do you have a website? Do you have an email list? Where do you store all that stuff? Cloud storage? And then you say, ah, but Ralph it's not worth tracking.Let me give you a Real life example, let's say you make $2,200 this month. If you ignore expenses, you feel fine. You're like, oh, no big deal. I just made $2,200. But here's what you paid for. You paid 39 bucks for Canva.You paid $23 for domain and email. You paid another 22 bucks for that Google Drive. $49 for a scheduling tool so you can have people come on your show. You bought that $97.Course, you bought $180 plugin for Audacity. You bought a. $300 you spent to your editor and $85 for Tripod and cables. Those things aren't small.That's your profit disappearing in quiet little subscriptions. And here's the punchline. Write offs aren't just for big creators. Write offs are how small creators survive long enough to get big.I want to say that again because hear me on that. Write offs are how small creators survive long enough to get big. You want to get big? Start here. Let's move on to myth number two.Write offs cause audits. Man, I hear this one all the time. I see this on comments on LinkedIn and Facebook. Write offs cause audits. That's not true. They don't.What causes audits are messy. Records and guessing games cause audits. Clarity does not. Write offs don't scare the irs. What scares the IRS is this. Trust me, bro. Bookkeeping.That kind of bookkeeping scares the irs. Numbers that don't match payouts, that scares the irs. Expenses that have zero explanation. A pile of Amazon orders with no business purposes.That's the things that scare the irs. And listen, creators do this one constantly. They write off equipment, but can't explain what it was, when it was used, and why it mattered.Let me give you an example. Let's say you buy a new camera. Oh, Ralph, this is easy. I'm filming with this. You buy a lens. Okay, I get it. But how about this?A Best Buy run that includes a laptop, some new AirPods, and a Nintendo Switch. Now we got a problem, don't we? Not because the laptop is bad, because your records are messy. Or this one. We talked about this earlier.You deduct travel, but on your bank statement it just says Marriott and Delta. IRS looks at that, goes Marriott where? Delta to where no notes, no event, no client, no deliverable. And then you're surprised.You feel nervous at tax time. It's not the write off. The write off is fine. It's the lack of a story behind it.Clarity is what Makes you audit resistant, not playing it safe by overpaying taxes. And see, overpaying taxes is not a safety plan. It's just expensive fear wrapped up like a safety plan. Let's look at myth number three.I hear this one almost daily, Ralph. I'll fix that later. When? You're going to fix it at tax time. Here's the truth that I've learned. Later is more expensive every single time.I don't care what you tell me. Later is always more expensive. Here's what later turns into. It turns into lost deductions because you forget about it.Or maybe you just don't have the receipt at all. Mystery transactions. I'm working with clients right now doing their taxes.I'm asking about stuff that happened last March, and they're like, Ralph, I can't remember what happened yesterday. Or panic bookkeeping, that rush to get those tax decisions done. See, later is where creators go to get surprised.And you're thinking, Ralph, surprised by what? Here's what they get surprised by a tax bill you didn't expect. You come to see somebody like me, and I say, hey, Calvin, guess What?You owe $3,000 in tax. Like, how is that possible, Ralph? It was a sneak attack, wasn't it? No, you didn't keep track of it. Or a profit number that isn't real profit.You're like, Ralph, here's what I got done, but I didn't keep any expenses. So guess what? It's all profit. Or a bank balance that lies to you. Here's real life. And this happens to creators every single day.You had a great month. That brand deal hit, got some adsense money. You're starting to sell some affiliate stuff. So you spend some money.You buy that new camera, you get that new fancy desk, you hire that editor, and then three months later, your CPA says, Guess what, Joe? You owe $12,000. And you say, what? How is it possible I don't have $12,000?Because later means you never built a system to keep the tax money separate. Get on my high horse about that one. But later means you never tracked profit. Later means you thought cash in the bank was income, but it's not.Because here's the truth. The creator who fixes it later always pays for it twice. Once in taxes, and then again in stress.And let me just tell you right now that stress costs a lot more. And here's one more. I'm gonna give you a bonus myth today that creators love. My receipts are enough, Ralph.Yes, receipts are evidence, but records tell the story A receipt proves you bought something. Sure, we can't argue with that. You bought it.But it doesn't prove what it was for, how it supports your content, whether it was personal as well, whether it was a business asset that you purchased, whether you should depreciate it, whether it belongs in cost of goods sold. I know I'm getting a little bit into the accounting lingo here.Whether it's reimbursable, whether it's a contractor expense, maybe need to give them a 1099, or whether it's even in the right year. Man, I see that all the time. Receipts don't answer questions. Records do. And let me make it painfully real. Let's say you bought an iPad.Receipt says iPad. Okay, that's fine. But what was it for? Was it a personal iPad you watch Netflix on? Was it a business tool used for scripts and edits?Was it ball for your kids at school? The kids need an iPad. Was it partially business and partially personal? Or is it tied to your content workflow?See, if you can't explain it calmly, it's not ready. And that's the standard. We're not talking about perfection today. We're talking about calm clarity.Because calm clarity is what makes you pay less tax legally. Hey, the. The Supreme Court decided many years ago it is your right to pay less taxes, but you got to do it legally.You don't want to end up like Al Capone in jail. Being calm also helps you stop feeling behind, stop being afraid of your numbers, and actually run this thing like a business.And that's the whole point, isn't it? Let's put this into real life, because these myths don't live in your head. They live in your calendar.They live in your bank app, in your inbox, and for so many of us, in our Amazon orders. So I want to put you in a lane. We always talk about lanes on the show. Now, this isn't about labels or shame, just a roadmap.Because every lane has a favorite myth tied to it, and that myth is what's costing you money. Let's talk about Lane. You're the early creator. You've got some income coming in, lots of overlaps.Everything is kind of mixed together like a big old salad. And. And this lane's favorite myth is I'm too small for write offs. So real life looks like this. Your payout hits on Tuesday. You feel a little relief.Hey, I could buy some stuff. So you jump on Amazon or you go to Sweetwater. You buy a mic, you buy a light, a Tripod.You get that Canva and you subscribe to a course, and it all goes on the same credit card. But here's the problem. It's the same credit card you buy groceries with. So when tax times comes, you know you're spitting money.But you can't prove it cleanly, can you? So you do the thing creators do. You shrug, you guess, and you under clean. And then you say to yourself, I'll fix it later.But later turns into I missed it. Your next step, if you're in that lane, is to start by separating and tracking you. Probably saying, Ralph, you're a broken record.But this is what you've got to do. Because if you're using one bank account for everything, you're not disorganized. You're living in hard mode. And hard mode always costs more.Let's move on to lane two, what I call the growing creator. Now, you're making consistent money every month. You got more tools, you got more. So you got more income coming in, but you're adding more to it.You got more tools, you got more subscriptions, and maybe you even got a contractor like me. And this lane's favorite myth are, hey, my receipts are enough. Because write offs cause audits. So real life looks like this.Your card has 47 transactions a month. Half of them are stripe fees. Adobe Canva, Descript, Notion ClickUp, tubebuddy Cap Cut, Kajabi Teachable. There's a lot of things out there.And then you've got Apple.com bill, what is that? Or Amazon Marketplace or PayPal something. Yeah, you've got receipts, but you don't have a story.So you either dump it into one bucket called software. I see that happen a lot of times. You don't categorize it at all. And you hand your account in a mess and you just hope and pray.And then you get nervous. Not because you did anything wrong. Nobody's saying you did anything wrong. But you can't explain it, and you certainly can't explain it calmly.That's what creates audit anxiety. It's not the write offs, it's the mess creating that anxiety. But clarity creates confidence, and your next step is system.So if you find yourself here, do that monthly review I've talked about. Clean those categories up and stop guessing. Because once you're growing, Gibson gets mighty expensive. Let's look at lane three.This is my established creator friends, multiple income streams, adsense, affiliates, brand deals, courses. Maybe you're doing some coaching. Maybe you've actually got an agency. Maybe you've built a team. You've got big tax impact here.This lane's favorite myth is, oh, you know what? I'm so busy, I'll fix it later. Because you can. Because you can't afford to delay it until you can't.And then tax time comes around, and real life looks like this. You've got contractors. Oh, do I need to 1099 them? You got an editor, a thumbnail designer, a VA maybe even hired a bookkeeper. And you're buying gear.You're traveling, you're upgrading, and you are so busy. I get it. I'm right there with you. So you do the dangerous thing. You just assume that'll work out later.And then you get to march and you realize, man, I didn't track anything cleanly. Your income streams aren't reconciled. Your contractor payments aren't even organized. Your mileage, who knows where you went?Your home office is unclear, just like the mess you're sitting in. Your gear purchases aren't classified right. And now missed write offs isn't a few hundred dollars, it's a few thousand dollars.See, this is the lane where a good system, it doesn't just save you stress, it saves you real money. See, what I talk about on this show is real money things. So your next step is precision planning, timing, and quarterly strategy.Because when you're established, it's not about finding receipts. It's about making decisions on purpose. Now here's the question for you. Which lane feels like you comment right now? Are you in lane one?Are you lane two or lane three? And listen, be honest with yourself, because if you pick the wrong lane, you build the wrong system.And then you up believing the same myths in a more expensive way. So now I'm going to give you. I talked about this at the beginning. I'm going to give you a workable decision process.And this is where it starts to feel complicated. Because it's. When you do it alone, it gets hard. But let's jump right into it. Step one, what did you actually earn?Now, I'm not talking about deposits, not that gross type. Oh, I did this much money? No profit. Do you even know what your profit is? Here's step number two. What did you need to produce that income?See, we started with the beginning. What was the income? What was the real income? And step two is, what did you need to produce that income? Not would be nice. What did you actually need?Step three, is it ordinary for your work? Editing software is ordinary. Hosting is ordinary, and contractors can be ordinary. Step four, we talked A little about this earlier. Is it mixed use?Because mixed use is where do it yourself. Taxes go to die, man. I see these mistakes all the time. Things like your phone and the Internet, laptop, home office, vehicle travel.If you're guessing percentages, you're gambling. And step number five, do you have a proof trail, like breadcrumbs on the thing there, right? Do you have the receipt?A statement, an invoice, but bigger than all those things, a note that shows the purpose. Now, I want to share a mini case study with you. This one will talk you through a big example here. Let's say you're a content Creator.You're earning $92,000 for the year. You've got multiple income streams, AdSense, sponsors, some affiliate, you got some subscriptions coming in.And the expenses they thought they had were about $16,000. But when I tore this apart, I did some what we call forensic accounting. I actually found they had $27,500 in expenses. Guess what that is?That's $11,500 in missed deductions. You'd be saying, okay, big deal, Ralph, 11,500. What's the impact?Depending upon your tax bracket, that can easily be a couple thousand dollars, sometimes even more. Now, it's not a guarantee, but it's real money. Here's another case study. I got this One creator earns $180,000 a year.Again, multiple streams, they track those expenses. When I looked at these categories, I'm like, who did this? A five year old? These don't make any sense.They had gear mixed with meals, subscriptions, missed supplies, and travel mixed with all kinds of personal stuff. Now, on paper they had $22,000 of expenses, but after cleanup, they had closer to double that, 48 grand.And it's not because we invented anything, because we found was already there and documented it properly. See, that's the difference between having expenses and having a system.Now, we talked a little bit about this whole split use thing, and I want to talk to you about that in a way that actually helps you. Because split use is the part that makes creators say, Ralph, I need help with this. Here's a simple method.Pick a reasonable percentage, whatever that could be, write it down and use it consistently. Not perfect, but consistent. Let's talk about your phone. Ask yourself this. How many hours a day are business related? Think about your phone.It's in front of you all the time. It's with us all the time. How much of that is used for business doing posting, shooting, video editing, sending messages, emails, brand Deal calls.And listen, if your phone is your studio, your business use is real, that percentage could be higher. Could be close to 100%. How about Internet? Internet's one again. Bix Business personal use percentage. Ask yourself this. Do you upload weekly?Maybe like me, you do one show that's daily. I've got one show that's a daily show. We're uploading all the time. Do you live stream? Do you send files to editors? Yes.If you do any of those things, there is a business portion. You got to figure out what that person is for you. I can help you with that. Let's talk about home office.Like I said, we're going to talk a lot about home office next week. But here's the line. I don't want to get into big, you know, IRS code lingo, but is it dedicated space?Is it used regularly and used only for business? Now, if it's your kitchen table, don't force it. If it's a room, that's clearly your studio, like what I'm sitting in right now. This is my studio.This is all I use this for. That's a real conversation. Now, I mentioned earlier we're going to talk about travel. So let's get to that right now.Because travel deductions don't hinge on vibes. A lot of content creators to me. Well, I got the vibe. Like I can deduct this. That's not what travel is all about. They hinge on purpose. And proof.The primary purpose was business. Was it that was the primary purpose for that travel business? Yes or no? Ask yourself this. Do you have an itinerary? What did you go on that trip for?Well, I attended Podfest. I intend. I attended some other training event. Okay, you got an itinerary for that? Did you keep receipts? Was your travel documented?How about the hotel stay? Were there any deliverables? Did you come away with something? A shot list? Did you have pictures and video you took?Maybe you walked away with a brand agreement. That's all stuff you can use to justify this. Because if the story I go back to this again. If the story is messy, the deduction feels stressful.I work with clients every day. If you've got a good story and you've got the receipts, it works. Let me give you a travel story. Crater takes a brand trip.That was what they wanted to do. They wanted to go make some shooting, so they took a brand trip. They deducted everything. They deducted their flights, their meals, the hotel.But here's the problem. There was no story. He didn't have an itinerary. No deliverables, documented. Now, every tax season are anxious.And it's not because deductions are evil. It's because the story was messy. And that messy creates stress. See what I mean? This is where creators go, okay, Ralph, I'm overwhelmed.Well, guess what? I'm glad you're overwhelmed. Not because you can't do it, because you're finally seeing this is a real business system.And that's why creators reach out to me. Because I can look at your numbers. I can look at your streams and your workflow and build a clean plan just for you.Here's my comment question number three. Which of these is your biggest headache? Is it your phone? Your home office? Maybe travel subscriptions? Just drop one word in the comments.See, here's the moment I see over and over, I work with a creator doing well, but they say I'm scared to look. And when we open everything, we look at the income streams. They realize they build a business without a money system.And it's not because they're careless. It's because. It's because nobody taught you how to be the money person, too. And that's where I come in.I help you build the system behind the content. And this is really the moment. Most people message me when the income is growing, but your confidence, isn't it?Okay, it's time for our weekly audit section. I want you to answer these out loud. And if people are around, it's okay. They won't think you're crazy. Do I know my profit from last month?Ask yourself that question. You got to know that if you've got a system, you'll know what your profit was from last month. Here's another question.Do I feel calm explaining my deductions? Can I calmly explain what this was for? Do I have records, or do I just have memories? Here's a big one. If the IRS asked questions, would I panic?Now, listen, if any of that felt uncomfortable, that's information. That's not shame. That discomfort is a signal. It's your business. Telling you it needs structure. Now, I'm already hearing objections.I can hear them through the screen. So let's handle those right now. A lot of people say, Ralph, I'm not big enough. You don't need to be big. You need to be clear.And like I said, I fought this one a couple times already. I'll do it later. What did I tell you? Later costs more. I hear this one almost once a week. I don't want to spend money.I don't want to spend money either. But guess what? Messy taxes cost money too. If you're real busy, you're saying, Ralph, I'm overwhelmed. But that's when systems matter the most.Because chaos is expensive. And clarity, once you do it, it pays for itself. And if this hits, you don't have to know everything. You just can't keep guessing.And if you want clarity, I've mentioned this a couple times, that if you want clarity for your particular situation, go to contentcreatorsaccountant.com/helpme. When you do that, here's what happens. We talk, we look at your real numbers and we map out a plan.No pressure, just come and if you're not ready, drop your questions in the comments. Like I said, I look at all these, tell me where you're stuck because I'd rather get you clear than help you keep guessing another year.Again, that's contentcreatorsaccountant.com/helpme. Listen friend, as I close out today, you're not behind. You're a creator building a real business in a messy system.It's what I call content creator chaos. Write offs don't have to feel scary, they just need to be understood and you have to be able to tell a story.And once you understand them, you stop shrinking, you stop guessing, and you start running this like the business that it is. So if this helped you today, I want to encourage you, subscribe and follow.My whole goal is to help you keep more of what you work so hard to earn and break down the content creator. Money, chaos and something you can manage. I'm Ralph Estep Jr. I am the content creator's accountant and I'll see you next time on the show.