March 11, 2024 • 35 mins
Sarah Harralson interviews tax expert Sean Connor, owner of Liberty Tax in Nashville, Tennessee. Connor gives advice and great tips for musicians and creatives filing their taxes.
You can connect with him for tax consultations here:
connor@libertytaxnashville.com
https://www.instagram.com/libertytaxnashville/?hl=en
https://www.facebook.com/libertytax19101/
You can connect with him for tax consultations here:
connor@libertytaxnashville.com
https://www.instagram.com/libertytaxnashville/?hl=en
https://www.facebook.com/libertytax19101/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:06):
Hi, I'm Sarah Harrelson, yourhost of the Mind Your Music Business podcast.
Today's topic is essential to everyone aswe are coming up on the dreaded
day of April fifteenth, when taxesare due. So today's guest, we
have Sean Conner, a musician thathas performed for twenty years and now he's
a tax expert and the owner ofLiberty Tax in Nashville. So he's going
(00:30):
to provide us with some advice andtips today for musicians and creatives that need
some extra help when it comes totheir taxes. And I think we could
all use a few extra tips inthat area. So Connor, thank you
so much for being on the podcasttoday. How are you? Oh,
I'm doing able well than excuse medoing real well? Thanks for having me
(00:50):
on, Sarah, Yeah, absolutely, So could you begin by maybe telling
us how long have you been inthe tax business and what made you transition
or make the transition in your careerfrom a musician to a tax business owner.
Well, the short version is this, I've been a musician my entire
(01:11):
life. Back in twenty twelve,the band that I was leading and singing
for really started to take off andwe had our first million dollar a year
on the road. I thought i'dtreat myself to a CPA. That year
we'd done two hundred and twenty shows, I had one hundred and ninety seven
ten ninety nine. So I wentto the CPA, gave my ten ninety
(01:34):
nine. Long story short, hetold me it was going to cost me
about forty two hundred dollars to domy taxes and it's going to take him
seven weeks. On the way there, I had seen a bunch of signs
for a free tax school. Mostlythey were trying to get you to come
work for them. But I wentand I took the tax school, and
I learned to do taxes. Andas we were kind of competing with more
major label bands on the road forcrew and things like that, I used
(01:59):
the you know, the fact thatI could help them with their taxes as
a fringe benefit, a way toget some new people on. And you
know, as the band thing sortof started to, you know, cool
off a little bit, right abouttwenty twenty, all the gigs went away,
I think for most of us,And that was when I bought my
(02:20):
first tax store. I'd already hada pretty good clientele base built up that
I was doing on the side andbought my first store in twenty twenty during
COVID and then now I have sixamazing So working at Liberty Tax and a
city such as Nashville, I assumeyou work with a lot of musicians and
(02:42):
creatives, and that's kind of yourpurpose for going into the tax business to
maybe help creative sort through all thatthey need to do to file their taxes
and all their independent contracting work.Yeah. Absolutely, you know, believe
it or not, I really enjoydoing taxes. It kind of all stems
from my love of eighth grade wordproblems in math class, and so I
(03:07):
really really enjoy kind of taking youknow, the papers that made up somebody's
life this year and really, youknow, seeing how we can arrange them
to to best benefit them within therules. It's a puzzle trying to put
it together and make sure it's doneright. Now. Of course, there
is a right way to do it, but there are there's often more than
(03:30):
one right way to do it,and making sure you're doing it right but
also to your benefit is something thatI you know, that's what I want
to do for people, make surethey're getting the most benefit they can out
of this. Yeah. Yeah,And as you mentioned, when you're on
the road, you had a millionten ninety nine's from doing various gigs.
(03:50):
A lot of other musicians do too. They're constantly performing various gigs, always
buying new gear to perform those gigs, and a lot of them drive tax
season because they don't know where tostart. Maybe they have a box of
receipts, they don't even know whatto claim sometimes, So could you maybe
start with giving listeners a basic explanationfor maybe what a musician needs to claim
(04:15):
on their taxes and what they canexpense to help get a return. Well,
it really depends on what you're doing. There's there's a million and one
things you could potentially you could potentiallyclaim. There's the obvious things. There's
there's instruments, there's strings, there'sdrumsticks, you know, all that kind
(04:36):
of stuff. But then then there'sthe not so obvious things. There's per
diem, which is one of theweirdest things in the world. If somebody
else, if you are not theband leader and somebody is paying you a
per diem, well that's not taxableincome, but you have to still record
it. But if you are theband leader. You can take per diem
(05:00):
based on a schedule that the Ir S provides and it just reduces your
income. So it can mean acouple of different things, but on average,
there's a million and one things thatthat you can take as a as
a musician, a lot of thingsthat people don't think about. Or your
subscriptions if you're playing, especially ifyou're playing in a band that does covers
(05:24):
and that kind of thing, andyou need Spotify to learn songs, well,
Spotify your Spotify subscription. Maybe you'remaking demos at home, you're a
songwriter, and it's not just thecomputer that you bought, but also it's
you know, the software you're youknow, have a subscription to Native Instruments,
so you get the plugins for yourfor pro tools or logic. You
(05:47):
have subscription to Lander to master yourdemos or master your your you know,
final product, that sort of thing. All of these things are potentially uh
deductible from your income, and inthe case of musicians, for most of
(06:08):
us, for most of our career, it's going to show up as a
losing as a losing business. You'regonna you're gonna have a negative most years,
which in a lot of cases canbe helpful to you. But if
you're, you know, trying tobuy a house maybe and you want to
show some income on your on yourtaxes, maybe showing negative income isn't what
(06:29):
you want to do. So there'sthere's other factors, you know, obviously
you have to think about sometimes notjust getting the most back. So once
again, it's finding, it's findingwhat is going to be the most beneficial
for you in your specific situation,and you know, and making making the
system work for you, right.And then also you wouldn't want to report
(06:53):
a loss more than three years ina row, correct, Well, so
yeah, we have. We hada little get together the other night and
we're with some musicians when we weretalking about this. So in general,
if you show a loss three outof five years, then the I r
(07:15):
S will consider what you do hobbyincome instead of business income. Hobby income
is not where you want to be. It's text at a much higher rate.
And then you also cannot deduct anyexpenses from from hobby income, which
is wild. But because you didn'tmake money doesn't necessarily mean it's not a
(07:38):
business you if you can show eventhough it's losing money year over year that
you have a profit motive. That'sthe number one thing that you are trying
to make a profit. The factthat you know you're not actually doing that
might not be your fault. Youknow, there could be other things that
play. There could be you knowthat I started my business during COVID or
(07:59):
who knows. So as long asyou are willing to keep records and show
the steps that you're taking to bea business to become profitable, then you
can usually still continue to claim businessincome even if you are showing a loss
(08:20):
more than they would normally allow,right, And so it's so important with
different subscriptions that a musician might havegear they're buying, and then maybe they're
constantly on the road playing gigs.It's so important for them to keep track
of everything they're spending and all theincome they're making. But sometimes the musician
(08:46):
feels like they don't have time tostay organized or keep track of their receipts.
So I kind of want to talkabout organizational ways for a musician to
keep track of all this instance,I like to have a tax deduction folder
on my email so I can justdrop digital receipts in there. So I'm
(09:07):
not, you know, frantically searchingfor a receipt come tax time, and
then a lot of people throw physicalreceipts in a box and that can be
a lot to sort through at theend of the year. But I think
it's important to have some sort ofsystem, whether it's a spreadsheet or email
folder going because not all gigs atthe end of the year will send you
(09:28):
a w W two or ten ninetynine. For instance, if you're a
musician doing gigs on Sound Better,they'll pay through PayPal. Some gigs pay
through Venmo, and they just neversend you a ten ninety nine, especially
if it's under a certain amount.So it's important to keep track and claim
(09:50):
their income through those kind of sitestoo. So what would you say are
your best organizational practices for a musicianto keep track of all of this,
So, musician or otherwise, anysmall business, if you're a home you
know, if you're a small businessowner, just get a separate bank account.
(10:11):
That's the bottom line. Get separatebank account. Get one bank account,
one credit card. I know,obviously sometimes we got to put something
on a credit card, right,So one bank account, one credit card.
Every cent that you make from yourbusiness whether it's gig you know,
gig money, whether it's you know, songwriting royalties that come in, anything
(10:33):
that's related to your music business.That money goes into that bank account,
then sure like pull that money out, no problem. But that way,
at the end of the year,every single purchase that you made and every
single cent that you made from yourbusiness went into or came out of that
bank account. So you can goand say, what are my total deposits
(10:54):
for the year twenty one, sixhundred and twelve. That's how much money
I made this year period. Idon't have to think another thing about it.
That's where all the money was.You know. Obviously if you're working,
you know, you're playing on Broadwayand there's some cash tip money that
comes in, you know, technicallyyou should write that down in a notebook
(11:16):
if you're spend it before it goesinto the into the bank account. Obviously
that's decisions you have to make foryourself. But but to me having having
one bank account and one credit cardand everything, so I know, all
income is listed here, all purchasesare here, and that way, if
you have have all your purchases inone central place, you can either buy
(11:41):
the very cheapest version, you know, online version of QuickBooks and and have
you know, attach your account toyour quick Book's account to your bank account
and it'll sort through most of yourexpenses for you if you you know,
(12:01):
if you don't want to do theQuickBooks thing, it's still pretty easy to
go in. At the end ofthe year. You only have twelve bank
statements versus a box of receipts.You're looking at bank statements and you say,
okay, well, I know whatguitar center is, so I highlight
those in green, you know,and I go through here, and I
know what you know X Y Zis. I highlight that in blue,
(12:22):
and then you know, it's easyenough to figure that with about an hour
of your time at the end ofthe year. If you're touring. Another
big, big one is mileage.Mileage or a lot of businesses, is
your number one expense this year.They're giving you sixty five point five cents
per mile for every every mile youdrove for your business. But I know
(12:48):
there were some years that we put, you know, seventy thousand miles on
the van. So you know thatright there is almost a fit Well,
yes, it's almost a fifty thousanddollars reduction in my income when I go
to when I go to list thatincome at the end of the year.
And that's huge, you know,when you're something that people musicians don't think
(13:13):
about a lot, when you're workinga W two job and you look at
that pay stub and it says thisis how much you made, and then
they took out money for federal andthey took out money for Social Security and
Medicare. That Social Security and Medicarethat they take out is seven point sixty
five percent of your check. Andyour employer matches that seven point sixty five
percent, you know, putting moneyin your retirement account for down the line.
(13:39):
When you are self employed, youare both the employee and the employer.
So they have what it's called onthe the ten forty se tax,
self employment tax. It's fifteen pointthree percent of every bit of profit you
make they take from you for SocialSecurity and Medicare. You got to pay
the employer side, you got topay the employee east side. So that's
(14:01):
a huge, huge hit at theend of the year. Because in addition,
even if you don't owe federal taxes, if you didn't make enough to
owe federal taxes. You're still goingto owe fifteen percent of your of your
self employment income for the self employmenttax. So using things like mileage to
write it down as much as youpossibly can is obviously in your best interest.
(14:26):
You know, keeps you from payingas much in federal tax, keeps
you from paying as much in setax, which for most musicians is the
real killer. Yeah. And Ithink that's such an important thing to mention
because a lot of musicians forget thatsense they're self employed, they're not really
making that full you know, onethousand dollars or whatever amount on their gig.
(14:50):
They need to kind of put asidean amount for taxes when they have
to if they have to pay anamount back the following year, if they
don't have any expenses. Yeah,and it's really easy to get your dig
yourself a hole. Say well,I'm two thousand short this year, and
then you know, next thing,you know, you're another thousand short the
(15:16):
year after, plus all the taxesand out of the penalties and interest from
the year before, and it addsup real quick. And if you don't
get yourself out of get yourself outof that, then you're going to be
you know, You're going to keepdigging the hole deeper, is what I'm
trying to say. Yeah, yeah, And so if you don't really want
(15:37):
to keep track of it NonStop,I think it's a great idea to have
separate bank account, separate credit cardto easily see what you're spending and what
you're making. I attended a reallygreat session when I was at Belmont and
IRS. Employee was giving musicians differenttax tips and advice. The most common
(16:00):
thing that she found in her jobwas that many creatives they don't know what
they can expense, or they'll tryto expense things that aren't eligible. So,
for example, some of the topbiding items a musician can expense,
like we mentioned gear, pr servicesor subscriptions, hiring a band for a
(16:25):
paid gig when you have to paythem out, music, teaching expenses,
and even maybe renting a rehearsal roomor studio. There's so many different things
that can be expense. So arethere any particular items that you think musicians
often forget to expense? And thenon the opposite end, is there anything
(16:45):
you find that people are trying toexpense but it's not valid, maybe like
clothes or something Okay, So clothesis a good example. If I go
to the mall and I buy myself, you know, cool outfit, and
I buy it with the thought,hey, I'm gonna wear it to this
gig on Friday. You know,great, So this is a show clothes.
(17:10):
But then after the show on Friday, I'm gonna wear it again,
you know, two weeks later.And unless it's strictly show clothes, it's
not. It's not a business expense. It has to be something that you
wouldn't wear anywhere else. If youwere buying scrubs and you were you know,
self employed nurse or you know,doula or something like that, yes
(17:33):
that would count because you're not gonnawear scrubs hopefully, you know, on
an airplane or whatever. But butyeah, clothes is a good example that
that. That's a sometimes yeah,sometimes it can be deductible and sometimes it's
not. You know, there's amillion, million and one things travel expenses
are. There's a lot of rulesabout the travel expenses. You know,
(17:56):
travel is expensive, so when you'reexpensing, you know, a trip,
you want to expense everything. Butwhen you stopped at McDonald's and you you
know, spent twelve bucks on lunch. That's not deductible because that's not a
business meal. Hier said, Well, you were going to eat lunch,
even if you were home, that'snot a business expense. If you went
(18:21):
to McDonald's and you took a potentialclient and paid for his big Mac,
well then that meal becomes, youknow, deductible, you know. But
I mean there's a huge list ofyou know, the things that are potentially
deductive. Travel expenses, office orspace rental, rehearsal space, like you
(18:42):
said, commissions or payments to managersor employees, band members, Equipment that
you use that might be strings andpicks and drumsticks, it might be you
know, a PA gear. Now, when you're when you're writing off big
gear, you know, expensive thingsthat are over one thousand dollars and they're
(19:04):
going to you know, meant tolast more than a year. You actually
have to depreciate those items over fiveyears. So, yes, you went
out and bought a fifteen thousand dollarsPA system, but you can't take it
all this year. You have toappreciate that over the course of five years.
So you take the three thousand ofeach and if you're like most musicians,
you're buying gear every year, soyou probably have just this cascade of
(19:29):
depreciation. Well, this is whatI had from five years ago and four
years ago and three years ago,and it's slowly working its way off off
of your balance sheet. So you'vegot, you know, to think about
that. For equipment with auto expenses, you can either take the mileage or
you can take the actual expenses.People all the time want to take mileage
(19:53):
and bring me gas receipts. Well, I can't use them both. You're
always better taking the mind it's aone in a thousand return that I do
that it's better off taking the actualexpenses. And you can only make that
determination in year one, and thatwith of the vehicle, and you can't
(20:14):
change after year one, and it'salmost always going to still end up being
better in the long run to takethe mileage. So yeah, so auto
expenses, you've got to think aboutthat. There's plenty of other supplies and
materials that go along with being amusician. Sometimes, you know, if
you're a band leader, you mightyou know, spend a few hundred dollars
on ink and paper printing out chartcharts for the band members and you know,
(20:38):
fill in people there could be anynumber of other supplies. You know,
you had to go buy a tipjar, and you had to go
buy lights at Walmart to put inthe tip jar so people saw it,
you know, just any little thinglike that. Again, if you have
that one bank account, one creditcard, you don't have to think about,
(20:59):
now, what did I spend onyou know, on this whole thing,
because it's already it's already been swiped, you know, on that on
that card, and you don't haveto think about it. You know that
it's a business expense. We weretalking about clothing. I'm running down my
list here. I have specialty clothingor safety equipment for your work. If
you're you know, you have specialclothing that you're only going to wear on
(21:19):
stage, well that would count.If you have safety equipment, you know,
if you're a rigger on uh,you know, on the Pink Tour,
and you know you've got to havecertain harnesses that they expect you to
bring with you and you have topay three hundred dollars for this harness,
Well, certainly that's a safety equipmentfor your work. So you got that.
(21:41):
You've got legal and accounting fees,any kind of professional services fees.
When people come to me and Iprepare their taxes, the part of their
bill that's their business taxes is deductibleon the following year's taxes. Well,
if you you know, hired alawlawyer for a dispute with an old bandmate,
(22:02):
if you hired a lawyer to helpyou negotiate a publishing deal, all
of these things would be legal andprofessional services that you could write off.
Bank fees. If you're selling Tshirts at your show's for twenty bucks and
when people run the credit card,the bank charges you three percent plus a
(22:23):
sixty nine cent swipe fee, thosebank fees add up, so you know,
at the end of the year youwant to figure out what you paid
in bank fees. That's deductible studioexpenses. If you went into the studio
to record and you paid for that, obviously, that's an investment in yourself,
in your business, in your career. It's deductible any kind of equipment,
(22:47):
rentals, business fees, utilities,including phone and internet. These days
you can't work without either one.So generally when musicians come to me,
I say, well, what doyou pay for your cell phone? And
you know, say one hundred andtwelve bucks a month, and I say,
okay, well use that for personaland business. Right, We're going
(23:07):
to take half of that fifty sixbucks's personal, but we're going to take
the fifty six bucks a month that'sthat's business, because it's you know,
how else do you break it up? Internet? You know, obviously you
have to have Internet to conduct businessthese days. So if you're strictly working
out of your house as far asbooking the gigs and that sort of thing,
(23:30):
you can figure out what portion youthink of your home Internet you use
for business and you can write thatoff if you're not writing off your entire
home office, which is kind ofthe bottom of my list down here.
But I mentioned subscriptions to whether it'sdigital subscriptions like to YouTube or Spotify,
(23:52):
Pandora or whatever, or whether it'sactual publications like you know, Guitar Player
that you use to stay current feesfor workshops, for seminars, memberships,
association dues. I'm a member ofthe Musician's Local here in Nashville, so
I pay my membership dues every year. Those are deductible on my taxes.
(24:15):
You know, I still sell afair amount of physical product from my website
and so spend it, you know, do some amount on shipping and mailing.
Don't forget to deduct those expenses whenyou know, I'm not careful with
the guitar and I you know,mess up the neck and I have to
have it repaired. Any maintenance,any repairs that I'm doing to my instruments,
(24:37):
that's all deductible. I have specificinsurance that's just for my musical instruments
because I have, you know,a lot, and so that's deductible.
Any advertising I do, any Facebookads, when I boost a post on
Instagram or whatever, that that wholething. They change the name of it
all the time, but that's advertised. Any sales tax that you that you
(25:03):
pay, that's also deductible if you'rehere in Tennessee. So that's just you
know, that's that's a pretty uh, you know, pretty good list.
Uh to start with. I mentionedhome office deduction. If you're still showing
a profit, uh, then thenyou might look into having a home office
(25:23):
deduction. I R. S saysyou have to have a portion of your
home that is specifically set aside onlyfor the business. Now that can be
a corner where you record your podcast. It could you know, just be
a portion of a room. Itcan be an entire office room in your
house. In my case, mymy bottom floor. It's a really large
(25:47):
floor, and I've got my taxoffice on this side of it, and
I've got my music office on theleft side of it. And so I
write off this part for my forone business and this part for the other.
But to do so, you haveto know how big your house is.
You have to know what portion ofthe house is used exclusively for the
(26:07):
business. And then basically based onthat. You know, for example,
if my house is a thousand squarefeet, but I'm using one hundred of
it for business, ten percent ofall of my household expenses can be written
off for business. That's rent,that is utilities, that is maintenance,
that is any you know, reallyanything you could think of, hoapes,
(26:30):
anything that I spend on my house, I can write off that percentage for
the business. Now, home officeis the last thing on your business return
because they only let you take homeoffice if you're showing a profit. They
won't let home office take you belowzero. It can only take you to
(26:52):
zero. So anyway, that canbe a valuable deduction if you're still showing
a profit and you want to writethat income down. Yeah. Absolutely,
definitely a lot of great items andtips to remember for tracking expenses and it
can be a lot, and havingto know which different buckets to put these
(27:17):
expenses in when you're filing your taxesis important too, and also not you
know, drawing going over the lineby fibbing on some of the expenses,
because if you get audited, youknow, I assume you're going to have
to prove how you used all thesedifferent expenses, how you used your home
office situation, et cetera. Soit's definitely important to keep track of it,
(27:41):
put it in the right buckets,and even get an accountant if you
feel like you can't handle all ofthe filing and sorting yourself. Absolutely,
and just responding to a couple ofthings there. One, people when they
start having trouble, they jump immediatelyto getting a CPA and CPAs are like
(28:06):
three hundred and fifty bucks an hour, you know, so maybe you know,
you know, like there's CPAs,there's accountants, there's bookkeepers, and
then there's just specialists you know onthe going on the ladder down and some
you know, uh, you know, if you're having tax issues. You
find somebody like me that understands taxes. You don't necessarily need a CPA,
(28:26):
like I said, that's going tocharge you three hundred dollars an hour.
I learned that real early on.But you know, if you have someone
you're having some you know, troubleLLC trouble, trouble with the state,
you can find somebody a little morespecific that's not going to cost you as
much. A bookkeeper is not goingto cost you nearly as much as an
accountant, that kind of thing.So so that's definitely just you know,
(28:51):
make sure you're you know, findingwhat you need and hopefully not too much,
you know, too much more Ido. You know, I have
a lot of people they into meand you know, they're making they're making
playing on Broadway money, and theygot an accountant last year or CPA last
year and ended up spending twenty twohundred dollars to keep their books and you
(29:12):
know they didn't really need that,you know, they weren't ready for that
level. So yeah, I dothink that that's that's important. Last thing
you said, you were talking aboutputting things in the right bucket. Something
new that I found out this yearwhen we were getting ready for our presentation
last week was royalties. If youare a songwriter and you are getting royalties,
(29:37):
if you are still an active musician, those royalties have to go on
a Schedule C with your performance income, which is subject to self employment tax.
If you are not an active musician, those royalties can go on a
Schedule E, which is not subjectto those se taxes. So knowing what
(29:59):
the rule are and whether you canput that on a Schedule C or E,
and which one is beneficial to youis very helpful. Yeah. Yeah,
and especially if you know you're gettingyour royalties from BMI or another p
R, they usually send you aschedule SEE of your royalties by the end
(30:21):
of January, so it definitely helpswhen those companies already put it on the
correct schedule for you. Yeah.Yeah, well, actually that I haven't
seen. I i'd see SECH hasnot sent me anything like that, but
yeah, I don't know. I'dlove to see that because that's interesting that
they would do the tax form foryou. I'd love to see it.
(30:41):
Yeah. Yeah. I get minefrom b M I on a schedule CEE,
which is nice. So yeah,hopefully other companies can start doing the
same. Very cool. So manytax sites have great tax preparation services now.
(31:03):
They make it easy. You canspend a little extra money if you
need help from a specialist, nota CPA like you mentioned. And they
also provide a lot of free tipson their tax sites, which is great.
But at the same time, youknow, I think musicians should kind
of be a little bit aware,especially if they're seeking help during tax season.
(31:26):
There's a lot of tax scams andtax fraud happening. So how can
people avoid being scammed during tax season? That's a tough one, I you
know, I think I think justkind of following rules of general common sense.
I think we all know not togive our social Security number out just
(31:48):
because someone calls and asks for it. If the irs is never going to
call you and ask you to givethem your Social Security or any kind of
account numbers, They're never going tocall and demand payment from you ever,
especially if they haven't been in touchvia mail. And I'm not talking about
just a couple of letters in yourmailbox. I'm talking about you've got to
(32:12):
sign for this package, mam sortof mail, and at that point then
you might get, you know,demands for payment. But they're going to
be in the envelope, not notsomebody calling. So it's not so much
something I see musicians running into asmuch as older folks, you know,
getting hammed like that. I think, you know, luckily, most of
(32:32):
us, having grown up in kindof the digital age, are a little
more a little more savvy and notgetting taken in by by a lot of
the scams that are grandparents are gettinggetting hit with, right Yeah, yeah,
definitely don't click the links if youget any text. But so we're
(32:54):
coming up on the end of Aprilfifteenth when taxes are due. Uh where
can people find you if they needsome help with their taxes this year?
Well, I've got six stores aroundthe Nashville area. They're in uh East
Nashville, Madison, Donaldson, Nolansville, Pike Dixon, and my biggest stores
(33:19):
actually in Franklin, just south ofthe city. We're Liberty Tax Nashville.
You can get me owner at LibertyTax Nashville. I think info at works
too, and connor At also works, and uh yeah, we're all around
town. If you if you havespecific questions, please, you know,
shoot me an email. I'm happyto uh, you know, just give
(33:42):
people advice. Uh, you know, no charge for anything like that.
If you need something a little more, give us, call the store and
you know, set up some time, come in sit down with us.
We'll be happy to you know,help you look at your situation and and
you know again we're not going tocharge you anything unless we're actually filing a
return for you. So yeah,owner at Liberty Tax Nashville dot com or
(34:04):
our stores all six stores. Youcan get us at six one, five,
eight oh one eighty four hundred.Okay, great, thank you.
And you mentioned a great thing earlier. If you know musician has to pay
a fee to get their taxes filed, they can deduct that on next year's
taxes. So that's definitely an importantreminder, I think absolutely. Yeah.
(34:28):
Yeah, you're investing in yourself,making sure you're getting you know, taking
care of your business and making surenot only that you're getting everything that you
can out of it, but makingsure you're current and you're not going to
get some what they call a nastygraham from the irs. Right. Yeah,
awesome, Well, thank you somuch for all of the helpful tips
(34:49):
and advice you have given us today. I think it will help some musicians
with their taxes and hopefully we'll bringsome people over to you at Liberty Tax.
Thank you again, Connor, absolutelythanks for having me. Sir mm hmm
Hi, I'm Sarah Harrelson, yourhost of the Mind Your Music Business podcast.
Today's topic is essential to everyone aswe are coming up on the dreaded
day of April fifteenth, when taxesare due. So today's guest, we
have Sean Conner, a musician thathas performed for twenty years and now he's
a tax expert and the owner ofLiberty Tax in Nashville. So he's going
(00:30):
to provide us with some advice andtips today for musicians and creatives that need
some extra help when it comes totheir taxes. And I think we could
all use a few extra tips inthat area. So Connor, thank you
so much for being on the podcasttoday. How are you? Oh,
I'm doing able well than excuse medoing real well? Thanks for having me
(00:50):
on, Sarah, Yeah, absolutely, So could you begin by maybe telling
us how long have you been inthe tax business and what made you transition
or make the transition in your careerfrom a musician to a tax business owner.
Well, the short version is this, I've been a musician my entire
(01:11):
life. Back in twenty twelve,the band that I was leading and singing
for really started to take off andwe had our first million dollar a year
on the road. I thought i'dtreat myself to a CPA. That year
we'd done two hundred and twenty shows, I had one hundred and ninety seven
ten ninety nine. So I wentto the CPA, gave my ten ninety
(01:34):
nine. Long story short, hetold me it was going to cost me
about forty two hundred dollars to domy taxes and it's going to take him
seven weeks. On the way there, I had seen a bunch of signs
for a free tax school. Mostlythey were trying to get you to come
work for them. But I wentand I took the tax school, and
I learned to do taxes. Andas we were kind of competing with more
major label bands on the road forcrew and things like that, I used
(01:59):
the you know, the fact thatI could help them with their taxes as
a fringe benefit, a way toget some new people on. And you
know, as the band thing sortof started to, you know, cool
off a little bit, right abouttwenty twenty, all the gigs went away,
I think for most of us,And that was when I bought my
(02:20):
first tax store. I'd already hada pretty good clientele base built up that
I was doing on the side andbought my first store in twenty twenty during
COVID and then now I have sixamazing So working at Liberty Tax and a
city such as Nashville, I assumeyou work with a lot of musicians and
(02:42):
creatives, and that's kind of yourpurpose for going into the tax business to
maybe help creative sort through all thatthey need to do to file their taxes
and all their independent contracting work.Yeah. Absolutely, you know, believe
it or not, I really enjoydoing taxes. It kind of all stems
from my love of eighth grade wordproblems in math class, and so I
(03:07):
really really enjoy kind of taking youknow, the papers that made up somebody's
life this year and really, youknow, seeing how we can arrange them
to to best benefit them within therules. It's a puzzle trying to put
it together and make sure it's doneright. Now. Of course, there
is a right way to do it, but there are there's often more than
(03:30):
one right way to do it,and making sure you're doing it right but
also to your benefit is something thatI you know, that's what I want
to do for people, make surethey're getting the most benefit they can out
of this. Yeah. Yeah,And as you mentioned, when you're on
the road, you had a millionten ninety nine's from doing various gigs.
(03:50):
A lot of other musicians do too. They're constantly performing various gigs, always
buying new gear to perform those gigs, and a lot of them drive tax
season because they don't know where tostart. Maybe they have a box of
receipts, they don't even know whatto claim sometimes, So could you maybe
start with giving listeners a basic explanationfor maybe what a musician needs to claim
(04:15):
on their taxes and what they canexpense to help get a return. Well,
it really depends on what you're doing. There's there's a million and one
things you could potentially you could potentiallyclaim. There's the obvious things. There's
there's instruments, there's strings, there'sdrumsticks, you know, all that kind
(04:36):
of stuff. But then then there'sthe not so obvious things. There's per
diem, which is one of theweirdest things in the world. If somebody
else, if you are not theband leader and somebody is paying you a
per diem, well that's not taxableincome, but you have to still record
it. But if you are theband leader. You can take per diem
(05:00):
based on a schedule that the Ir S provides and it just reduces your
income. So it can mean acouple of different things, but on average,
there's a million and one things thatthat you can take as a as
a musician, a lot of thingsthat people don't think about. Or your
subscriptions if you're playing, especially ifyou're playing in a band that does covers
(05:24):
and that kind of thing, andyou need Spotify to learn songs, well,
Spotify your Spotify subscription. Maybe you'remaking demos at home, you're a
songwriter, and it's not just thecomputer that you bought, but also it's
you know, the software you're youknow, have a subscription to Native Instruments,
so you get the plugins for yourfor pro tools or logic. You
(05:47):
have subscription to Lander to master yourdemos or master your your you know,
final product, that sort of thing. All of these things are potentially uh
deductible from your income, and inthe case of musicians, for most of
(06:08):
us, for most of our career, it's going to show up as a
losing as a losing business. You'regonna you're gonna have a negative most years,
which in a lot of cases canbe helpful to you. But if
you're, you know, trying tobuy a house maybe and you want to
show some income on your on yourtaxes, maybe showing negative income isn't what
(06:29):
you want to do. So there'sthere's other factors, you know, obviously
you have to think about sometimes notjust getting the most back. So once
again, it's finding, it's findingwhat is going to be the most beneficial
for you in your specific situation,and you know, and making making the
system work for you, right.And then also you wouldn't want to report
(06:53):
a loss more than three years ina row, correct, Well, so
yeah, we have. We hada little get together the other night and
we're with some musicians when we weretalking about this. So in general,
if you show a loss three outof five years, then the I r
(07:15):
S will consider what you do hobbyincome instead of business income. Hobby income
is not where you want to be. It's text at a much higher rate.
And then you also cannot deduct anyexpenses from from hobby income, which
is wild. But because you didn'tmake money doesn't necessarily mean it's not a
(07:38):
business you if you can show eventhough it's losing money year over year that
you have a profit motive. That'sthe number one thing that you are trying
to make a profit. The factthat you know you're not actually doing that
might not be your fault. Youknow, there could be other things that
play. There could be you knowthat I started my business during COVID or
(07:59):
who knows. So as long asyou are willing to keep records and show
the steps that you're taking to bea business to become profitable, then you
can usually still continue to claim businessincome even if you are showing a loss
(08:20):
more than they would normally allow,right, And so it's so important with
different subscriptions that a musician might havegear they're buying, and then maybe they're
constantly on the road playing gigs.It's so important for them to keep track
of everything they're spending and all theincome they're making. But sometimes the musician
(08:46):
feels like they don't have time tostay organized or keep track of their receipts.
So I kind of want to talkabout organizational ways for a musician to
keep track of all this instance,I like to have a tax deduction folder
on my email so I can justdrop digital receipts in there. So I'm
(09:07):
not, you know, frantically searchingfor a receipt come tax time, and
then a lot of people throw physicalreceipts in a box and that can be
a lot to sort through at theend of the year. But I think
it's important to have some sort ofsystem, whether it's a spreadsheet or email
folder going because not all gigs atthe end of the year will send you
(09:28):
a w W two or ten ninetynine. For instance, if you're a
musician doing gigs on Sound Better,they'll pay through PayPal. Some gigs pay
through Venmo, and they just neversend you a ten ninety nine, especially
if it's under a certain amount.So it's important to keep track and claim
(09:50):
their income through those kind of sitestoo. So what would you say are
your best organizational practices for a musicianto keep track of all of this,
So, musician or otherwise, anysmall business, if you're a home you
know, if you're a small businessowner, just get a separate bank account.
(10:11):
That's the bottom line. Get separatebank account. Get one bank account,
one credit card. I know,obviously sometimes we got to put something
on a credit card, right,So one bank account, one credit card.
Every cent that you make from yourbusiness whether it's gig you know,
gig money, whether it's you know, songwriting royalties that come in, anything
(10:33):
that's related to your music business.That money goes into that bank account,
then sure like pull that money out, no problem. But that way,
at the end of the year,every single purchase that you made and every
single cent that you made from yourbusiness went into or came out of that
bank account. So you can goand say, what are my total deposits
(10:54):
for the year twenty one, sixhundred and twelve. That's how much money
I made this year period. Idon't have to think another thing about it.
That's where all the money was.You know. Obviously if you're working,
you know, you're playing on Broadwayand there's some cash tip money that
comes in, you know, technicallyyou should write that down in a notebook
(11:16):
if you're spend it before it goesinto the into the bank account. Obviously
that's decisions you have to make foryourself. But but to me having having
one bank account and one credit cardand everything, so I know, all
income is listed here, all purchasesare here, and that way, if
you have have all your purchases inone central place, you can either buy
(11:41):
the very cheapest version, you know, online version of QuickBooks and and have
you know, attach your account toyour quick Book's account to your bank account
and it'll sort through most of yourexpenses for you if you you know,
(12:01):
if you don't want to do theQuickBooks thing, it's still pretty easy to
go in. At the end ofthe year. You only have twelve bank
statements versus a box of receipts.You're looking at bank statements and you say,
okay, well, I know whatguitar center is, so I highlight
those in green, you know,and I go through here, and I
know what you know X Y Zis. I highlight that in blue,
(12:22):
and then you know, it's easyenough to figure that with about an hour
of your time at the end ofthe year. If you're touring. Another
big, big one is mileage.Mileage or a lot of businesses, is
your number one expense this year.They're giving you sixty five point five cents
per mile for every every mile youdrove for your business. But I know
(12:48):
there were some years that we put, you know, seventy thousand miles on
the van. So you know thatright there is almost a fit Well,
yes, it's almost a fifty thousanddollars reduction in my income when I go
to when I go to list thatincome at the end of the year.
And that's huge, you know,when you're something that people musicians don't think
(13:13):
about a lot, when you're workinga W two job and you look at
that pay stub and it says thisis how much you made, and then
they took out money for federal andthey took out money for Social Security and
Medicare. That Social Security and Medicarethat they take out is seven point sixty
five percent of your check. Andyour employer matches that seven point sixty five
percent, you know, putting moneyin your retirement account for down the line.
(13:39):
When you are self employed, youare both the employee and the employer.
So they have what it's called onthe the ten forty se tax,
self employment tax. It's fifteen pointthree percent of every bit of profit you
make they take from you for SocialSecurity and Medicare. You got to pay
the employer side, you got topay the employee east side. So that's
(14:01):
a huge, huge hit at theend of the year. Because in addition,
even if you don't owe federal taxes, if you didn't make enough to
owe federal taxes. You're still goingto owe fifteen percent of your of your
self employment income for the self employmenttax. So using things like mileage to
write it down as much as youpossibly can is obviously in your best interest.
(14:26):
You know, keeps you from payingas much in federal tax, keeps
you from paying as much in setax, which for most musicians is the
real killer. Yeah. And Ithink that's such an important thing to mention
because a lot of musicians forget thatsense they're self employed, they're not really
making that full you know, onethousand dollars or whatever amount on their gig.
(14:50):
They need to kind of put asidean amount for taxes when they have
to if they have to pay anamount back the following year, if they
don't have any expenses. Yeah,and it's really easy to get your dig
yourself a hole. Say well,I'm two thousand short this year, and
then you know, next thing,you know, you're another thousand short the
(15:16):
year after, plus all the taxesand out of the penalties and interest from
the year before, and it addsup real quick. And if you don't
get yourself out of get yourself outof that, then you're going to be
you know, You're going to keepdigging the hole deeper, is what I'm
trying to say. Yeah, yeah, And so if you don't really want
(15:37):
to keep track of it NonStop,I think it's a great idea to have
separate bank account, separate credit cardto easily see what you're spending and what
you're making. I attended a reallygreat session when I was at Belmont and
IRS. Employee was giving musicians differenttax tips and advice. The most common
(16:00):
thing that she found in her jobwas that many creatives they don't know what
they can expense, or they'll tryto expense things that aren't eligible. So,
for example, some of the topbiding items a musician can expense,
like we mentioned gear, pr servicesor subscriptions, hiring a band for a
(16:25):
paid gig when you have to paythem out, music, teaching expenses,
and even maybe renting a rehearsal roomor studio. There's so many different things
that can be expense. So arethere any particular items that you think musicians
often forget to expense? And thenon the opposite end, is there anything
(16:45):
you find that people are trying toexpense but it's not valid, maybe like
clothes or something Okay, So clothesis a good example. If I go
to the mall and I buy myself, you know, cool outfit, and
I buy it with the thought,hey, I'm gonna wear it to this
gig on Friday. You know,great, So this is a show clothes.
(17:10):
But then after the show on Friday, I'm gonna wear it again,
you know, two weeks later.And unless it's strictly show clothes, it's
not. It's not a business expense. It has to be something that you
wouldn't wear anywhere else. If youwere buying scrubs and you were you know,
self employed nurse or you know,doula or something like that, yes
(17:33):
that would count because you're not gonnawear scrubs hopefully, you know, on
an airplane or whatever. But butyeah, clothes is a good example that
that. That's a sometimes yeah,sometimes it can be deductible and sometimes it's
not. You know, there's amillion, million and one things travel expenses
are. There's a lot of rulesabout the travel expenses. You know,
(17:56):
travel is expensive, so when you'reexpensing, you know, a trip,
you want to expense everything. Butwhen you stopped at McDonald's and you you
know, spent twelve bucks on lunch. That's not deductible because that's not a
business meal. Hier said, Well, you were going to eat lunch,
even if you were home, that'snot a business expense. If you went
(18:21):
to McDonald's and you took a potentialclient and paid for his big Mac,
well then that meal becomes, youknow, deductible, you know. But
I mean there's a huge list ofyou know, the things that are potentially
deductive. Travel expenses, office orspace rental, rehearsal space, like you
(18:42):
said, commissions or payments to managersor employees, band members, Equipment that
you use that might be strings andpicks and drumsticks, it might be you
know, a PA gear. Now, when you're when you're writing off big
gear, you know, expensive thingsthat are over one thousand dollars and they're
(19:04):
going to you know, meant tolast more than a year. You actually
have to depreciate those items over fiveyears. So, yes, you went
out and bought a fifteen thousand dollarsPA system, but you can't take it
all this year. You have toappreciate that over the course of five years.
So you take the three thousand ofeach and if you're like most musicians,
you're buying gear every year, soyou probably have just this cascade of
(19:29):
depreciation. Well, this is whatI had from five years ago and four
years ago and three years ago,and it's slowly working its way off off
of your balance sheet. So you'vegot, you know, to think about
that. For equipment with auto expenses, you can either take the mileage or
you can take the actual expenses.People all the time want to take mileage
(19:53):
and bring me gas receipts. Well, I can't use them both. You're
always better taking the mind it's aone in a thousand return that I do
that it's better off taking the actualexpenses. And you can only make that
determination in year one, and thatwith of the vehicle, and you can't
(20:14):
change after year one, and it'salmost always going to still end up being
better in the long run to takethe mileage. So yeah, so auto
expenses, you've got to think aboutthat. There's plenty of other supplies and
materials that go along with being amusician. Sometimes, you know, if
you're a band leader, you mightyou know, spend a few hundred dollars
on ink and paper printing out chartcharts for the band members and you know,
(20:38):
fill in people there could be anynumber of other supplies. You know,
you had to go buy a tipjar, and you had to go
buy lights at Walmart to put inthe tip jar so people saw it,
you know, just any little thinglike that. Again, if you have
that one bank account, one creditcard, you don't have to think about,
(20:59):
now, what did I spend onyou know, on this whole thing,
because it's already it's already been swiped, you know, on that on
that card, and you don't haveto think about it. You know that
it's a business expense. We weretalking about clothing. I'm running down my
list here. I have specialty clothingor safety equipment for your work. If
you're you know, you have specialclothing that you're only going to wear on
(21:19):
stage, well that would count.If you have safety equipment, you know,
if you're a rigger on uh,you know, on the Pink Tour,
and you know you've got to havecertain harnesses that they expect you to
bring with you and you have topay three hundred dollars for this harness,
Well, certainly that's a safety equipmentfor your work. So you got that.
(21:41):
You've got legal and accounting fees,any kind of professional services fees.
When people come to me and Iprepare their taxes, the part of their
bill that's their business taxes is deductibleon the following year's taxes. Well,
if you you know, hired alawlawyer for a dispute with an old bandmate,
(22:02):
if you hired a lawyer to helpyou negotiate a publishing deal, all
of these things would be legal andprofessional services that you could write off.
Bank fees. If you're selling Tshirts at your show's for twenty bucks and
when people run the credit card,the bank charges you three percent plus a
(22:23):
sixty nine cent swipe fee, thosebank fees add up, so you know,
at the end of the year youwant to figure out what you paid
in bank fees. That's deductible studioexpenses. If you went into the studio
to record and you paid for that, obviously, that's an investment in yourself,
in your business, in your career. It's deductible any kind of equipment,
(22:47):
rentals, business fees, utilities,including phone and internet. These days
you can't work without either one.So generally when musicians come to me,
I say, well, what doyou pay for your cell phone? And
you know, say one hundred andtwelve bucks a month, and I say,
okay, well use that for personaland business. Right, We're going
(23:07):
to take half of that fifty sixbucks's personal, but we're going to take
the fifty six bucks a month that'sthat's business, because it's you know,
how else do you break it up? Internet? You know, obviously you
have to have Internet to conduct businessthese days. So if you're strictly working
out of your house as far asbooking the gigs and that sort of thing,
(23:30):
you can figure out what portion youthink of your home Internet you use
for business and you can write thatoff if you're not writing off your entire
home office, which is kind ofthe bottom of my list down here.
But I mentioned subscriptions to whether it'sdigital subscriptions like to YouTube or Spotify,
(23:52):
Pandora or whatever, or whether it'sactual publications like you know, Guitar Player
that you use to stay current feesfor workshops, for seminars, memberships,
association dues. I'm a member ofthe Musician's Local here in Nashville, so
I pay my membership dues every year. Those are deductible on my taxes.
(24:15):
You know, I still sell afair amount of physical product from my website
and so spend it, you know, do some amount on shipping and mailing.
Don't forget to deduct those expenses whenyou know, I'm not careful with
the guitar and I you know,mess up the neck and I have to
have it repaired. Any maintenance,any repairs that I'm doing to my instruments,
(24:37):
that's all deductible. I have specificinsurance that's just for my musical instruments
because I have, you know,a lot, and so that's deductible.
Any advertising I do, any Facebookads, when I boost a post on
Instagram or whatever, that that wholething. They change the name of it
all the time, but that's advertised. Any sales tax that you that you
(25:03):
pay, that's also deductible if you'rehere in Tennessee. So that's just you
know, that's that's a pretty uh, you know, pretty good list.
Uh to start with. I mentionedhome office deduction. If you're still showing
a profit, uh, then thenyou might look into having a home office
(25:23):
deduction. I R. S saysyou have to have a portion of your
home that is specifically set aside onlyfor the business. Now that can be
a corner where you record your podcast. It could you know, just be
a portion of a room. Itcan be an entire office room in your
house. In my case, mymy bottom floor. It's a really large
(25:47):
floor, and I've got my taxoffice on this side of it, and
I've got my music office on theleft side of it. And so I
write off this part for my forone business and this part for the other.
But to do so, you haveto know how big your house is.
You have to know what portion ofthe house is used exclusively for the
(26:07):
business. And then basically based onthat. You know, for example,
if my house is a thousand squarefeet, but I'm using one hundred of
it for business, ten percent ofall of my household expenses can be written
off for business. That's rent,that is utilities, that is maintenance,
that is any you know, reallyanything you could think of, hoapes,
(26:30):
anything that I spend on my house, I can write off that percentage for
the business. Now, home officeis the last thing on your business return
because they only let you take homeoffice if you're showing a profit. They
won't let home office take you belowzero. It can only take you to
(26:52):
zero. So anyway, that canbe a valuable deduction if you're still showing
a profit and you want to writethat income down. Yeah. Absolutely,
definitely a lot of great items andtips to remember for tracking expenses and it
can be a lot, and havingto know which different buckets to put these
(27:17):
expenses in when you're filing your taxesis important too, and also not you
know, drawing going over the lineby fibbing on some of the expenses,
because if you get audited, youknow, I assume you're going to have
to prove how you used all thesedifferent expenses, how you used your home
office situation, et cetera. Soit's definitely important to keep track of it,
(27:41):
put it in the right buckets,and even get an accountant if you
feel like you can't handle all ofthe filing and sorting yourself. Absolutely,
and just responding to a couple ofthings there. One, people when they
start having trouble, they jump immediatelyto getting a CPA and CPAs are like
(28:06):
three hundred and fifty bucks an hour, you know, so maybe you know,
you know, like there's CPAs,there's accountants, there's bookkeepers, and
then there's just specialists you know onthe going on the ladder down and some
you know, uh, you know, if you're having tax issues. You
find somebody like me that understands taxes. You don't necessarily need a CPA,
(28:26):
like I said, that's going tocharge you three hundred dollars an hour.
I learned that real early on.But you know, if you have someone
you're having some you know, troubleLLC trouble, trouble with the state,
you can find somebody a little morespecific that's not going to cost you as
much. A bookkeeper is not goingto cost you nearly as much as an
accountant, that kind of thing.So so that's definitely just you know,
(28:51):
make sure you're you know, findingwhat you need and hopefully not too much,
you know, too much more Ido. You know, I have
a lot of people they into meand you know, they're making they're making
playing on Broadway money, and theygot an accountant last year or CPA last
year and ended up spending twenty twohundred dollars to keep their books and you
(29:12):
know they didn't really need that,you know, they weren't ready for that
level. So yeah, I dothink that that's that's important. Last thing
you said, you were talking aboutputting things in the right bucket. Something
new that I found out this yearwhen we were getting ready for our presentation
last week was royalties. If youare a songwriter and you are getting royalties,
(29:37):
if you are still an active musician, those royalties have to go on
a Schedule C with your performance income, which is subject to self employment tax.
If you are not an active musician, those royalties can go on a
Schedule E, which is not subjectto those se taxes. So knowing what
(29:59):
the rule are and whether you canput that on a Schedule C or E,
and which one is beneficial to youis very helpful. Yeah. Yeah,
and especially if you know you're gettingyour royalties from BMI or another p
R, they usually send you aschedule SEE of your royalties by the end
(30:21):
of January, so it definitely helpswhen those companies already put it on the
correct schedule for you. Yeah.Yeah, well, actually that I haven't
seen. I i'd see SECH hasnot sent me anything like that, but
yeah, I don't know. I'dlove to see that because that's interesting that
they would do the tax form foryou. I'd love to see it.
(30:41):
Yeah. Yeah. I get minefrom b M I on a schedule CEE,
which is nice. So yeah,hopefully other companies can start doing the
same. Very cool. So manytax sites have great tax preparation services now.
(31:03):
They make it easy. You canspend a little extra money if you
need help from a specialist, nota CPA like you mentioned. And they
also provide a lot of free tipson their tax sites, which is great.
But at the same time, youknow, I think musicians should kind
of be a little bit aware,especially if they're seeking help during tax season.
(31:26):
There's a lot of tax scams andtax fraud happening. So how can
people avoid being scammed during tax season? That's a tough one, I you
know, I think I think justkind of following rules of general common sense.
I think we all know not togive our social Security number out just
(31:48):
because someone calls and asks for it. If the irs is never going to
call you and ask you to givethem your Social Security or any kind of
account numbers, They're never going tocall and demand payment from you ever,
especially if they haven't been in touchvia mail. And I'm not talking about
just a couple of letters in yourmailbox. I'm talking about you've got to
(32:12):
sign for this package, mam sortof mail, and at that point then
you might get, you know,demands for payment. But they're going to
be in the envelope, not notsomebody calling. So it's not so much
something I see musicians running into asmuch as older folks, you know,
getting hammed like that. I think, you know, luckily, most of
(32:32):
us, having grown up in kindof the digital age, are a little
more a little more savvy and notgetting taken in by by a lot of
the scams that are grandparents are gettinggetting hit with, right Yeah, yeah,
definitely don't click the links if youget any text. But so we're
(32:54):
coming up on the end of Aprilfifteenth when taxes are due. Uh where
can people find you if they needsome help with their taxes this year?
Well, I've got six stores aroundthe Nashville area. They're in uh East
Nashville, Madison, Donaldson, Nolansville, Pike Dixon, and my biggest stores
(33:19):
actually in Franklin, just south ofthe city. We're Liberty Tax Nashville.
You can get me owner at LibertyTax Nashville. I think info at works
too, and connor At also works, and uh yeah, we're all around
town. If you if you havespecific questions, please, you know,
shoot me an email. I'm happyto uh, you know, just give
(33:42):
people advice. Uh, you know, no charge for anything like that.
If you need something a little more, give us, call the store and
you know, set up some time, come in sit down with us.
We'll be happy to you know,help you look at your situation and and
you know again we're not going tocharge you anything unless we're actually filing a
return for you. So yeah,owner at Liberty Tax Nashville dot com or
(34:04):
our stores all six stores. Youcan get us at six one, five,
eight oh one eighty four hundred.Okay, great, thank you.
And you mentioned a great thing earlier. If you know musician has to pay
a fee to get their taxes filed, they can deduct that on next year's
taxes. So that's definitely an importantreminder, I think absolutely. Yeah.
(34:28):
Yeah, you're investing in yourself,making sure you're getting you know, taking
care of your business and making surenot only that you're getting everything that you
can out of it, but makingsure you're current and you're not going to
get some what they call a nastygraham from the irs. Right. Yeah,
awesome, Well, thank you somuch for all of the helpful tips
(34:49):
and advice you have given us today. I think it will help some musicians
with their taxes and hopefully we'll bringsome people over to you at Liberty Tax.
Thank you again, Connor, absolutelythanks for having me. Sir mm hmm
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