Well, I did my taxes, and I declared all my income from my website, including donations, t-shirt sales, and ad revenue minus hosting costs, domain registrations costs, part of my cable modem cost, and part of this laptop I’m currently typing on. Ended up costing me about a hundred bucks in taxes and another ninety or so for having H&R Block do a Form C for me.
Anyone else know how other bloggers are handling blog income? I don’t think Amazon or Paypal reports to the IRS, so it would be pretty easy to get away with not mentioning your donations (but nothing is more wrong than tricking the IRS).
Other bloggers report directly to the Lord Himself.
I don’t recieve any income from my blog, so I can’t help. But yeah, good call on not messing the the IRS.
I don’t have to fear that calamity as long as I stay within the safety circle of the Magickal Blogspot.
The great demon of blogging income shall never smite me!
Come to blogspot. There is safety in the blogspot.
(but nothing is more wrong than tricking the IRS).
On the contrary. It would not be wrong in the least. It would just be very dangerous, and very stupid. But not wrong.
Yes, there is safety in the blogspot. There is also limited customization in the blogspot. But the safety thing really trumps the customization thing, and I don’t get enough traffic to pay for half of the costs of just getting a url redirect. I’m sticking to dot.tk and blogspot for now. Go capitalism!
I have neither a blog nor taxes as I’m 16 and currently unemployed. I really can’t help with that dilemia of to pay or not to pay the IRS, but it seems to me that as long as Bush is in office he’ll keep using your tax money for killing evil foreginers.
All is well and good in the land that God loves best (that’s the USA for any of you smart-ass Europeans or Canadians who think I’m talking about your crappy countries.)
killings evil foreginers!!! way cool
It’s better Bush spend my money on slaughtering evil foreginers than a dummycrat spend it on supporting ignorant, unemployed, child factories who live better than I do cause they can’t figure out how to put on a condom or fill out a job application.
If the left would just realize it would be easier to move to Canada than try to change this country into Canada we all would be better off.
Despite being the highest rated blog on my service, I still have no income from it.
I thought about making up fake income just to mess with the IRS, but I figure they get teased often enough.
Fix your tax lickety split:
Blog (and related) = Non Corp.Entrepenuer Income.
Look it up…it ain’t there. Throws Turbo Tax for a loop, lemme tell you.
Tricking the IRS is like NASCAR teams, trying to sneek something past the officials. It’s fun, its legal, and Screw the IRS!
Frank, What I really want to know is: Who’s more likely to report their income from their blogs liberals? or conservatives?…Oh well, I am impressed by your honesty. You did the right thing.
By far a convservative is more likely to report. Part of being a good citizen and a good American is obeying its laws (when they are within reason)… and we all know that liberals are horible citizens.
I mean come on, liberals love criminals. They wanted to allow felons and inmates to vote, why, not because they care about “their rights”, but because felons and inmates tend to vote for democrates.
Did you remember to claim Zatoichi as a dependent?
Oh I wouldn’t play with the IRS, they sent me a bill for 8k about 2 years ago. It took about 2 months before they reduced the bill to 800 bucks, even though I was right and they where wrong I still had to pay.
If I were a blind samurai, I could have so many deductions.
Sounds more like “hobby” income, that is, if you make a little dough on something you like doing, as opposed to making a lot (?) of dough doing your job, something you don’t like doing.
Of course, I don’t know what the proper term is for the IRS, but it’s relatively simple and as long as the income isn’t too much, there isn’t much documentation needed.
I think the IRS should actually pay me more due to my incurred costs of blogging (and other website activity).
My activities are funding other business and individuals, that should be some form of tax credit I think.
I wonder what stance the candidates have on bloggers and blogging tax credits? If anyone has a chance to ask a candidate a question, make sure to ask about this important issue.
I bet at least one of them says something about how they support blogging activity as long as its limited to old-growth forrests and then only to less than 50% of the foliage per acre.
don’t forget your 90 dollars for HRBlock gets deducted next year.
Don’t forget the 90 bucks to HR Block is a deduction for next year.
Although I am a moderate liberal I’m not stupid when it comes to taxes. I have a very conservative tax preparer and she tells me all of the deductions that H&R Block are too busy to find. For example did you take out a business license? do you claim home office? did you write off or depreciate your computer? Did you write off your internet? etc. My preparer charges me more but boy is she worth it… If you have questions feel free to email
I believe one can make a certain amount of money with a hobby without having to report or pay taxes on it — it’s in one of my “selling your crafts” books. I’d have to look it up.
But yes, don’t mess with the IRS. As someone else said above – it’s not wrong, but it’s very dangerous. Depending on one’s tax shenanigans, it can be like playing in traffic — if you’re there long enough, the probability of being hit approaches 100%.
Good man – cheating on taxes is a no win situation. It’s much better to work within the system. For example, you just need to get your Senator to sponsor a bill that pays you not to blog (you know, like farmers get paid not to grow carrots or whatever…). Wait…FrankJ not blog…what am I saying…damn my conniving brain…I’m such a Ronin!
Frank,
Check with a CPA. I’d claim the donations as a gift. Anything less that $10K/year is not taxable. You have to claim income from your adds, but donations I’m not so sure.
good point those are the kinds of details thatH&R Block overlooks. the people there are not trained in detailed tax law they are everyday people who do a little training to make some income during tax time. once you go into business there are all kinds of red tape issues that Block will not touch. even my last tax preparer didn’t touch the things that my new tax preparer does she has never had someone audited because she stays up un what the red flags are and won’t deduct anything I don’t have proof of. You know it’s the one when the preparer says like mine did when I first met with her “I don’t want those ckskers to get 5 cents more than they deserve”
Wouldn’t it be cool if the US government could send you pictures of terrorists that had been killed using your tax money? Kind of like the “adopt a kid in another country deals?” where you pay them some money and they send you a picture of a kid you are supposedly supporting? I bet you’d get a lot more participation in the “your money killed this terrorist” program.
I am with Tyranous on this one, I want a 8/10 glossy of some dead terrorist I help killed. Oh patrick you can e-mail me a link of your tax preparer I have 8 computers I activly use I would love to have them depreciated. kabasue (at) hotmail.com
Donations are gifts and you do not have to pay taxes on gifts…just how much are you making anyway?
Also, you cannot report your internet, laptop, a computer room or office unless you use them exclusively for business and never use them for personal use.
Re:
Tax advice- the best place to get it is from an expert. If you have an easy return, by all means go to HR Block. But if you have/want to start a business, it is FAR cheaper to do it right the first time, than screw it up, have to pay to get things straight, AND pay Uncle Sam’s interest and penalties.
(Full disclosure- I am a CPA/MBA specializing in small businesses)
A CPA and my rates are less than Block. And we keep you in the black and the IRS in the dark.
Rob beat me to it.
Many people end up in business through a hobby. The IRS ignores hobby transactions, which are generally losing propositions anyway. Indeed, that is why.
As long as money received is pretty incidental and is below or minimally above any expenses you could claim, there is no point in reporting it at all.
If you want to have a tax benefit some years of taking a loss, and know in some years you can eke out a profit and be convincing to the IRS that you are trying to make money, you can call your hobby a business and benefit from it taxwise.
The important thing is that if you do declare the revenue, make sure you take all the legitimate expenses too.
Oh, and this might be an interesting submission for Carnival of the Capitalists…