How to Do Your 2024/2025 Taxes as a Content Creator

Tax season can be stressful, especially for content creators navigating the unique challenges of reporting taxes on income and deductions from their creative endeavors. Whether you’re a seasoned pro or new to monetizing your content, understanding how to manage your taxes as a content creator for the 2024/2025 tax season is crucial.

Here’s a step-by-step guide to make the process smoother.

Step 1: Understand Your Tax Obligations

As a content creator or influencer, you’re considered self-employed by the IRS. This means you’re responsible for reporting all income earned from your activities, including:

• Sponsorships and brand deals
• Platform revenue (e.g., YouTube, TikTok)
• Affiliate marketing
• Sales from merchandise, courses, or other products
• Crowdfunding income (e.g., Patreon, Kickstarter)

Self-employed individuals must pay federal income tax, state income tax (depending on the state you live in), and self-employment tax, which covers Social Security and Medicare contributions.

When you add up all of these taxes, a good rule of thumb is that you can expect to pay approximately 25% in taxes on everything you earn. That includes federal income tax, state income tax, and self-employment taxes.

For example, let’s say you earned $50,000 from content creation in 2024 (before your deductions). You could expect to pay $12,500 in taxes across federal, state, and self-employment ($50,000 x 25%).

The best way to reduce that tax liability is to find as many deductions as possible (see Step 3 below).

Step 2: Track Your Income

Good record-keeping is essential. Keep track of all income sources and retain documentation such as:

• 1099-NEC or 1099-K forms from companies or platforms
• Payment receipts or bank statements for direct payments
• Invoices sent to clients

Regardless of how much you made from each company or platform, you are required to report all income on your tax return. Even if you don’t receive a 1099 from a company, you still must report the income.

When you received a 1099, be sure to cross check the amounts to your own records. If the company or platform messed up the 1099, be sure to reach out to them to get that corrected ASAP.

You can use accounting software to keep track of your payments — or use our handy income and expense tracker to gather everything together.

Step 3: Identify Deductible Expenses

One of the perks of being self-employed is the ability to deduct business expenses. Common deductions for content creators include:

• Equipment: Cameras, microphones, lighting, computers, and other tools essential for creating content.
• Software: Editing programs, design tools, or subscription services like Adobe Creative Cloud.
• Home Office: If you have a dedicated space for work, you may be able to claim a portion of your rent, utilities, and internet.
• Travel: Expenses for trips related to your content, such as conferences or collaborations.
• Marketing: Paid ads, website hosting, and domain fees.
• Education: Online courses or workshops that enhance your skills.

We know that deductions can be tricky as a content creator, so if you’re not sure whether something is deductible, we’ve created a handy cheat sheet of content creator tax deductions.

Step 4: Pay Quarterly Taxes

Unlike traditional employees, self-employed individuals don’t have taxes withheld from their paychecks. While you’re not required to pay quarterly taxes, there are benefits to doing so! For one, because you pay your taxes every quarter, you won’t be hit with a huge bill at the end of the year. You also avoid paying interest (8.0%) and penalties for not making quarterly tax payments.

Instead, you’re recommended to pay estimated taxes quarterly.

If your income is similar year to year, it can be easy to estimate the amount based on what your tax liability was for the previous year. But if your income has changed, you might need to do some work to figure out what your income minus your expenses are each quarter and pay a portion of that amount to the IRS. We would highly recommend working with a tax professional who can help you understand your quarterly tax obligations.

Step 5: File Your Taxes

For your 2024 tax return, your tax return and any payments you owe are due on April 15th. The work you’ve done tracking your income and expenses and keeping up to date on your quarterly estimated payments can make the process much easier.

Some content creators choose to use tax software to handle this step, as it gathers the forms you need and does the calculations needed. However, without personalized advice, content creators may end up missing out on thousands of deductions and savings they are entitled to.

Final Thoughts

Filing taxes as a content creator can be daunting, but with proper preparation and organization, you can handle it confidently. And if you’re ready to get help, contact us to set up a call. Because we work exclusively with content creators just like you, we understand your business and can work to lower your taxes and support your overall financial health.