## Write Offs You Didn't Know You Could Take

Discover hidden tax write-offs for creators and learn how to track business expenses to maximize your deductions each year.

#### The Benefit of Writing Off Expenses

Many creators _conserve, conserve, conserve._  
They never spend a dime, afraid to make an investment in their business because it reduces profit. _But is that a good idea?_

Expenses can serve a couple purposes:

1. They’re investments you make in your business, growing it to bring in more revenue.  
2. They reduce your taxable income, or the amount you’ll owe taxes on.

Here’s an example of B:

_For simplicity sake, we’re keeping profit and taxable income the same, although this isn’t always the case. This is also a simple tax liability calculation—there’s a lot more that usually goes into it._

In this scenario, Creator B paid $6,250 less in taxes despite having the same revenue as Creator A. This is because Creator B made more investments (expenses) into their business.

**A quick note:** Spending more is only a strategic move if you have a real investment you want to make in your business. Lower profit ≠ better if you’re spending on random, unnecessary things.

#### What You Can/Can’t Write Off

We discussed this more in a [tax workshop](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xc2zP-q2auk) earlier this year. But here’s the TLDW:

Expenses must be **ordinary and necessary** for the function of your business to be a reasonable write-off.

Here are some of the most common expenses content creators take:

#### #1: Props and Accessories

Whether it’s a wax figure of Jackie Chan, a Tesla you drive in the intro of a video, or simply a tripod—if it’s used solely as a prop or accessory in your content, you can write it off.

_Yep, you did read that right…a Jackie Chan wax figure…a $16k one, at that._

#### #2: Home Office/Rent

Let’s say you have a 2 bedroom apartment and use one room as your home office. You can write off a portion of your rent as a business expense.

Here’s what this might look like:

- $3,000 rent  
- 1,200 sq. ft. apartment // 150 sq. ft. home office  
- $375 per month write off

The square footage of the home office (150) is 12.5% of the total square footage of the apartment (1,200).

$375 is 12.5% of the total rent, or how much you deduct from your rent expense.

**What if I shoot content everywhere in my apartment? Can I write off my entire rent?** Eh, probably not. If you do, it could raise an alarm with the IRS. Talk to a CPA to find what an appropriate amount would be to write off.

#### #3: Automobile

You can write off a portion of your vehicle expenses, commensurate to how much you use the vehicle for business purposes.

Here are a few examples of when you can write off vehicle expenses:

#### #4: Meals

On the topic of In-N-Out—what about writing off meals?

This is an expense creators tend to get wrong.

You can write off 50% of any:

- **Client or business meals:** Meeting with other creators you collaborate with, clients, etc.
- **Travel meals:** When you’re at a conference or traveling to an event
- **Food at employee parties:** Celebrating your team or business clients
- **Content shoots:** Purchasing meals to make reviews about or feeding your team during a long shoot day

You should **not** write off matcha with your creator friend and call it a “business meeting.”

#### #5: Clothing

You can’t write off an outfit just because you featured it in a video. If that were the case, we’d never spend a dime of our personal dollars on clothes again.

Here are a few questions to ask yourself to know whether you can write off a clothing item:

#### #6: Giveaways

You can write off giveaways as a marketing expense if the goal is to drive engagement to your content.

But beware—depending on what and how much you give away, you may need to send a 1099 tax form to recipients, especially if the value is over $600.

(This is where a lot of creators make mistakes. )

#### How to Track Your Expenses

Knowing _what_ you can write off is half the battle.

**You need to make sure you carefully and accurately track your expenses.**

Reality is–content creators have unique, scattered expenses. From equipment, to travel expenses, to meals for shoots, studio costs, and more.

**You need a bookkeeping tool that tracks those expenses accurately.**

Karat's AI bookkeeping automatically recognizes and properly categorizes these creator-specific expenses, ensuring you capture every legitimate write-off.