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LLCs, Deductions, and Regret: Tax Tips for Indie Filmmakers · Indie Film Podcast

• 0:00
  Welcome to Indie Film Podcast. This week we are talking all
• 0:03
  about how we as independent film makers have structured our
• 0:05
  business to ease our tax burdens.
• 0:08
  So we'll be discussing things like.
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  What are some deductions that you're missing out on?
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  When's the right time to start your LLC?
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  And should you be listening to anything we say before
• 0:18
  consulting a tax professional? Absolutely not.
• 0:22
  On that note, I'm Victoria of Victor Spinalis Entertainment.
• 0:25
  And I'm Chuck of Lower Century Studios and Chuck's Media.
• 0:27
  We're 2 micro budget film makers attempting to grow to macro
• 0:30
  budget levels. Let's Talk LLC.
• 0:34
  Fantastic, Chuck, what is an LLC?
• 0:37
  Limited liability company and I'm very, very adamant about
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  people being informed about taxes because I messed up so
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  many deduction opportunities really early on in my filmmaking
• 0:53
  journey. And I do want to say before you
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  go out and purchase anything expensive to make movies or even
• 1:03
  just take pictures, go talk to a tax professional.
• 1:08
  I spent $50.00 to talk to a guy that has been basically filing
• 1:14
  taxes for 40 years to meet with him for 30 minutes.
• 1:17
  And it was one of the best things I've ever spent money on
• 1:21
  because it saved me so much money and I wish I would have
• 1:24
  talked to the guy five years ago.
• 1:27
  It is really important to talk to a professional and ideally
• 1:33
  one in your state or region at the very least will know
• 1:39
  individually what opportunities there are that exist, maybe in
• 1:42
  your state or your city or your, you know, I don't know, country
• 1:46
  as a whole. Yeah.
• 1:48
  It's important. I would just wouldn't go get tax
• 1:50
  advice out of somebody. Else don't go to fiver for that.
• 1:53
  No, no, that would be a very bad idea.
• 1:57
  So I just want to kind of share an example that happened to me
• 2:00
  personally recently. When Lowered Gentry Studios
• 2:04
  finished production on our feature film, we raised money
• 2:08
  and we did actually claim income through the business.
• 2:13
  And that went on my own personal tax return because the way that
• 2:17
  we sent up Lowered Gentry Studios was as a partnership and
• 2:21
  we had the company in place for years.
• 2:25
  But we just filed A0 tax return because we didn't want to.
• 2:29
  We didn't know what we were doing, We weren't making any
• 2:31
  money. And so we're like, well, we
• 2:33
  don't have to claim any money. And then once we made money, we
• 2:36
  claimed income. What happened the next year
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  though is that we were travelling at to film festivals
• 2:43
  and we were able to find a lot of deductions.
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  We also upgraded some of our equipment because we started
• 2:50
  doing live video shoots and we had a negative income within the
• 2:55
  business. And what happened, which was
• 2:58
  kind of miraculous to me, is I was working and getting AW2 at
• 3:02
  another company and I was filing, getting everything
• 3:05
  ready, and I was going to have to pay in at the end of the
• 3:09
  year, which I hate doing that. But then once we filed the
• 3:13
  business taxes and that was a negative balance, all of a
• 3:17
  sudden I have a tax return coming to me because even though
• 3:21
  I'm working full time at another job, this other business that
• 3:24
  I'm running has had income before and we lost money that
• 3:28
  year. And that came off the top of my
• 3:31
  income. And I wish I had done that years
• 3:35
  ago. I am going to throw one thing
• 3:37
  out there because this one is something that I'm weirdly A
• 3:40
  stickler about. You did not have a tax return
• 3:43
  coming. Your tax return happens no
• 3:45
  matter what. Your tax return is the thing
• 3:47
  itself. Yes, you had a refund coming.
• 3:50
  Yes, the return and the refund are.
• 3:52
  I'm sorry I. Well, that's good.
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  That's. Such a jerk.
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  I'm sorry, Correct me if I'm coming.
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  They are. They are different.
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  I had a refund coming but I yes I was going to have to pay in on
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  my return which I file every year.
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  Every year I file a return and I hate that time of year.
• 4:08
  It is absolutely awful. But I I was a a teacher for
• 4:12
  years and that's how my brother and I got started making films
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  was during the summer times. We had time available and we
• 4:21
  bought equipment and we didn't even realize that we could have
• 4:25
  been basically losing money and tearing that, taking that off
• 4:31
  the top of our income potentially during that time.
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  And I might not have had to pay in as much when I was a teacher,
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  which usually I got a refund as a as a teacher in Idaho because
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  the tax bracket was so low. But I could have potentially
• 4:47
  been much, much lower than what I was.
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  And so any of you out there that are just starting your
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  filmmaking journey, please, please talk to somebody before
• 4:57
  you buy that, you know, even $1000 camera, that's not
• 5:01
  nothing. I'm trying to think of like a
• 5:03
  black magic pocket. Yeah.
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  It's like, let's say you, yeah. But even if you go for something
• 5:07
  a little bit nicer and you like fully kit it out with, you know,
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  cage, lenses, tripod, all that jazz, like that's going to be
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  $5000 easy. So you might as well have that
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  as a business expense as opposed to I'm just passionate about
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  filmmaking and I want to do this.
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  Just make it official, make it the business.
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  After speaking to a professional, of course, because
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  this is all not not to be interpreted as legal nor tax
• 5:34
  advice. Let's let's actually talk about
• 5:36
  some hypotheticals. Hypotheticals sounds great.
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  Awesome, so I have a business, actually real and hypothetical,
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  and let's say I decide to create a stock photography account
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  underneath the name of my business.
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  Yes. That's interesting that I could
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  basically be taking pictures anywhere and have them for sale.
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  So if I'm travelling somewhere and then I decide to take a day
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  and dedicate that to business purposes, I wonder if I could
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  hypothetically deduct some of my travel?
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  I think hypothetically you'd be able to deduct a lot of your
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  travel expenses, some of your lodging expenses, some of your
• 6:21
  food expenses if you had to pay entry into any parks or anywhere
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  you were going. A lot of those things sure sound
• 6:30
  like they could hypothetically be deductions.
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  Oh. Interesting.
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  In that vein, one of my biggest pet peeves on YouTube is trying
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  to find a decent travel vlog about places that I want to go
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  to. So I, I think my, my guess is
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  that there's a lot of people out there that when they are on
• 6:51
  vacation, they decide to create a YouTube channel and create a
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  business and then put up some really horrible travel content.
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  And the, I don't even remember the name of this, this couple
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  that I found, I was trying to find some information about.
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  I can't remember where I was going.
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  I think it was part of IATA on a trip.
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  And this this person was just basically running around
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  pointing her iPhone like every 3 seconds.
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  It was completely different framing and it was nauseating as
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  she was showing everybody the beach and then like panning at
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  100 miles an hour. And I was like, I have no idea
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  what's going on in this place. I don't understand anything
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  about part of Allarta. This is a horrible documentary.
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  And as I went down my, my business journey and
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  understanding that like, oh, you know, you might be able to
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  deduct some of this stuff if you have a history of a YouTube
• 7:46
  channel posting these things. And I think that there's just a
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  lot of travel vloggers, the, the ones that are very subpar that
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  just enjoy travelling. They probably made a business
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  and every single penny that they spend on that trip is
• 8:02
  potentially coming off the top of their income.
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  Probably, maybe not. Maybe some people just really
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  enjoy doing it for the sake of doing it, but I feel like you
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  could tie a lot of that back to your average influencer on any
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  of your favorite social media networks, right?
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  For example, Coachella was a very big deal that happened
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  recently. OK.
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  There were a lot of influencers at Coachella.
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  Do you think for even one minute most of those influencers could
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  afford to go to Coachella, stay in a five star luxury resort
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  just outside Palm Springs and wear all these designer label
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  outfits for, you know, 3-4 days during the festival?
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  Probably not. There was probably a brand that
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  had a marketing budget that could justify it and could write
• 8:50
  that off, paying them to go as a marketable or as a marketing
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  expense. Oh yeah, makes sense.
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  Because then, you know, if a large business can justify that,
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  then theoretically any business could technically,
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  hypothetically justify that as a marketing expense.
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  Absolutely, I would imagine hypothetically.
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  Hypothetically, if your brand has some sort of relevance to
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  anything of the goings on at Coachella, yeah.
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  Which if you are a filmmaker and you are making creative films
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  and you're also doing videography work, there are a
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  lot of different things that you can take into account from a
• 9:34
  business end. Definitely talk to your tax
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  advisor. But there are so many different
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  things. When you're making video.
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  It's not like you're an artist that paints portraits.
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  I mean then you would be deducting canvas and paints and
• 9:47
  expenses and. Studio time, robably, maybe some
• 9:50
  lighting stuff, things like that.
• 9:51
  Yeah, yeah. But as a video creator, you can
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  get pretty creative. You can get real froggy with
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  some of those options. Yeah, yeah, like starting your
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  own travel vlog and making people sick to their stomach
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  with your camera work. Maybe if you're a filmmaker, can
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  somebody do that? Can somebody just make a travel
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  vlog that is really solid cinematography that does look
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  pretty and does make me understand what this particular
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  locale is like so that I can decide if I want to travel
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  there? That would be pretty.
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  Awesome. That would be cool if you're, if
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  you're listening right now looking for a new business idea
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  hypothetically. Yeah, we'd love to watch your
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  channel. Hopefully you can make make some
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  good money on that. Oh, I do think it's important to
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  clarify, though. What we're talking about here
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  are tax deductions, right? Yes.
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  So this is not making money and you can only deduct so much.
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  However, if you have an LLC either as a partnership like
• 10:48
  Lower Gentry has or as a single. Therefore apparently according
• 10:52
  to the IRS. This is so sad.
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  A disregarded entity because I am the only owner of my LLC
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  which just feels insulting to be a disregarded entity.
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  Anyway, doesn't matter. Sorry.
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  That's OK. I went off on that tangent.
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  Now my brain is trying to reset back to where I was.
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  Where were we? We.
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  The idea being you can take your regular income from any other
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  job, any other W2 style employment.
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  Yeah. And you can use this as a
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  deduction to lower your overall burden, your overall tax burden.
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  I guess this is not saying this is going to instantly make you
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  rich and you can just go travel around the world and spend
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  limitless amounts of monies and it's OK if you go into an
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  ungodly amount of debt on your credit card because you'll get
• 11:40
  it all back later. That's not it.
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  No, that's not what this is. No, it's just kind of pointing
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  out that some of those bad travel vloggers, they might be
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  making a decent amount of money at their day-to-day job and they
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  decide when they go on a trip to start a business that does
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  travel vlogs. And therefore, if they lose a
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  whole bunch of money because because you don't have to make
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  money when you start a business, it can be negative.
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  It can be. But there are games that you can
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  play in a micro budget as a micro budget filmmaker or as a
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  part time videographer or part time film maker.
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  Even if you do have a day job, there are advantages that you
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  can take care that you can take in the US tax code.
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  So please be mindful of those. Like like I said, I was super
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  regretful that I missed out on a lot of opportunities.
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  And when I decided to quit my full time job and begin
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  freelancing last year and I met with that tax advisor, it was
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  very edifying. And that's kind of what sent me
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  down the stock video, stock photo rabbit hole.
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  Learning, setting those things up so that when I am out and
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  about doing things, you can deduct travel expenses, gigs,
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  obviously, But sometimes, you know, asset creation,
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  hypothetically, if you're creating assets and putting them
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  up for sale, even if nobody's buying them, you do have
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  evidence that you have a storefront.
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  Yeah. And.
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  This is a business. It does exist.
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  And if you're going to be going out on a beautiful hike and it's
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  20 miles from your house, hypothetically you can take the
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  mileage deduction. $0.62 on the mile right there.
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  From your house and I think it's up to 75.
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  Oh yeah, I'm quoting that I'm. Don't listen to me.
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  This is another reason you should consult a professor.
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  Yeah, my information is so stuck in the taxes.
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  I just finished for the last taxi.
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  Yes yes, everything gets updated every year, so check that out,
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  but the the stock footage, stock video thing great.
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  I've even heard stories of people who are friends of
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  friends who. Hypothetically.
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  Hypothetically got access to camera equipment because they
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  review camera equipment and then took said camera equipment when
• 14:02
  they were on vacation and did a full day time lapse.
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  Wow. And therefore there is a full
• 14:11
  day time lapse. And hypothetically they didn't
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  really have to be around the camera while they were doing
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  that. They could have just turned it
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  on, had enough hard drive space to let it roll.
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  If it was in a safe enough place that you felt comfortable
• 14:23
  leaving it. Yeah, you'd want to be very
• 14:24
  careful, but you know, also if it's like a donated piece of
• 14:27
  gear, you know, who knows? But sorry, somebody stole the
• 14:31
  camera. You just sent me Canon.
• 14:33
  Do you mind sending me another things?
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  Yeah. But yeah, there's there's a lot
• 14:37
  of different things that you can do and you don't have to be
• 14:40
  super wealthy to take advantage of of some of the different tax
• 14:45
  breaks that we have. So yeah, I wanted to talk about
• 14:48
  that equipment. It was on my list.
• 14:50
  Equipment's a big one. Yeah.
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  What are things that you're that you aren't deducting that you
• 14:54
  should be? Definitely camera equipment.
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  I missed out so much expensive camera equipment could have
• 15:00
  deducted over the. Years now, sometimes, not
• 15:04
  always. Again, please consult a
• 15:05
  professional for this. Sometimes if you still have the
• 15:09
  detailed receipts and the ability to prove that you use
• 15:13
  that gear for your current business, you can go back
• 15:19
  however many years that it was. Either refile your taxes for
• 15:23
  that year if you want to, if you feel like it's a big enough
• 15:25
  expense, or you can set it up to have that deduction like oh
• 15:34
  there's a word for it and I don't remember what it is now,
• 15:36
  but basically divided up into multiple years as opposed to one
• 15:41
  large deduction in a single year.
• 15:43
  And if it was only two years ago, then you could say, well
• 15:46
  forget those first two, but I want to take the $115.00
• 15:50
  deduction for the next 4 years at least.
• 15:54
  Oh, depreciation and that's what you're talking about
• 15:55
  depreciating asset. Yes, OK, that's not the word I
• 16:00
  was thinking of though. So that's making me concerned
• 16:03
  that I'm misquoting this completely, but well.
• 16:05
  Hey, I mean. Again, talk to a professional.
• 16:07
  Yeah, but. Receipts are something that are
• 16:12
  I'm learning how to do and that's also something that you
• 16:16
  want to stay on top of if you are making a lot of business
• 16:19
  expenses and great, great tutorials out there, several of
• 16:23
  them as far as just making a Google Sheet to help you keep
• 16:28
  track of everything. And on top of that, making sure
• 16:32
  that you have a digital folder with your phone taking pictures
• 16:37
  of these receipts. And I know that Android Google
• 16:40
  Photos or Google Camera on Android does a great job of
• 16:44
  recognizing when something's a document when you put it
• 16:48
  underneath your. Thankfully Apple same thing has
• 16:51
  updated their iOS to acknowledge a lot of this.
• 16:53
  I think it was no time has no meaning three or four years ago
• 16:59
  at this point, they introduced their new scanning feature,
• 17:02
  which allows you to also extrapolate a lot of data from
• 17:06
  your images as well, which is really practical.
• 17:08
  Yeah, I know that the Google Lens or whatever the the Google
• 17:13
  Photo app, it'll just scan it and then name it and have all
• 17:17
  the receipt information. And it's about time our phones
• 17:20
  started doing this stuff for us. But you have to have all that
• 17:22
  stuff because my tax advisor did tell me if I ever get audited,
• 17:25
  it's not just about keeping track of, you know, what you've
• 17:29
  purchased. And I don't trust Amazon and B&H
• 17:33
  Video to B&H Photo Video to keep my invoices on their server.
• 17:38
  So I always download them and then re upload them to my Google
• 17:43
  Drive. Which my tax advisor did tell me
• 17:46
  that the digital receipts work totally fine.
• 17:48
  But making sure that making sure that you take the time to scan
• 17:54
  all of these documents maybe once a month, depending on how
• 17:57
  busy you get, once a week. I'll be honest with you though,
• 18:01
  if you are not the person that is going to build all this out
• 18:05
  and do all of this out, I do have my my phone just auto back
• 18:09
  backs up all of my photos to multiple places because I'm that
• 18:14
  paranoid person. But I don't, I do organize the
• 18:20
  receipts into folders so that I just have a big taxes folder and
• 18:24
  then I have invoices versus receipts versus other random
• 18:27
  things. But there is an app and I'm just
• 18:30
  going to say the name because I really like the app.
• 18:32
  I wish the app would sponsor us. That'd be super cool because I
• 18:35
  just like the app. Let's get a sponsor.
• 18:37
  It's called Expensify and it does have a free version.
• 18:41
  It's not as fully featured as their paid versions, obviously,
• 18:45
  but it is a free version of a software.
• 18:48
  It is an expense software. You take a photo, it
• 18:51
  automatically tags it categorizes it, throws it into
• 18:54
  the right folder, lets you sort by.
• 18:57
  So you could put A tag for, well, this is the feature film I
• 18:59
  was working on right now, and that's what this particular
• 19:02
  thing is for, or this was a nonprofit donation, or this was
• 19:05
  lunch with clients, and you could still tag it for a
• 19:06
  different video project that you're working on.
• 19:09
  Whatever it is, it makes it really easy.
• 19:11
  It's super fast. I really love Expensify.
• 19:14
  I also use QuickBooks Online though, for better or for worse.
• 19:18
  And I can say that I'm a QuickBooks Pro advisor.
• 19:21
  I'm allowed, not an accountant, just certified in QuickBooks.
• 19:26
  You just know how to beep boop the buttons.
• 19:28
  I know how to beep boop the buttons because I worked tech
• 19:30
  support for a long time. But you you don't know if that
• 19:32
  what you're doing is legal or not.
• 19:34
  I don't OK, 5050 shot, but it also has a similar functionality
• 19:38
  of almost any accounting software that you get now.
• 19:40
  So not even just QuickBooks, whether you're using 0 or you're
• 19:43
  using, oh gosh, I don't know, I should know so many names of
• 19:47
  these, but I don't. But whatever accounting software
• 19:49
  you're using, a lot of them now have the ability to just scan a
• 19:52
  receipt and it will upload it, it will tag it, it will keep
• 19:55
  track of all these things for you.
• 19:58
  Personally, I would say it's worth the investment to just do
• 20:01
  it, because if there's even the slightest chance that you might
• 20:06
  forget a receipt, it's not worth leaving it on yourself.
• 20:09
  Especially when some of these apps are free.
• 20:11
  It's just not worth it. Just get this stupid app and
• 20:14
  upload the photos. Yes, it's super important in
• 20:18
  case you ever do get audited. And now moving from working and
• 20:23
  getting AW 2 and starting my freelance career, it's been
• 20:28
  extremely important for me to keep track of every detailed
• 20:31
  expense, especially when I have busy months where I'm making a
• 20:36
  decent amount of money. And this is one thing that I
• 20:39
  also want to point out to people that are on the fence about.
• 20:43
  Maybe they have a a full time job.
• 20:45
  Things are going pretty well with filmmaking.
• 20:48
  Maybe they're getting good at camera operation or they're
• 20:51
  getting good at location sound and they're considering going
• 20:54
  out and working on their own. But they're concerned about
• 20:58
  healthcare, which was something that I was very personally
• 21:01
  concerned about when I decided to start freelancing.
• 21:04
  But I was so burnt out at my job.
• 21:06
  It was like, I'll deal with that issue, you know, eventually.
• 21:10
  So the October that this is in Idaho, this is how I was told it
• 21:16
  works in Idaho. The October when the healthcare
• 21:19
  market opened back up, I put that I was self-employed.
• 21:23
  And what they did, instead of looking at my gross income like
• 21:27
  they did when I was getting AW2, as far as qualifying me for
• 21:31
  healthcare plans, they were able to take my net income as the
• 21:36
  qualifying rate. And I double check this, I
• 21:38
  called somebody that was a health insurance broker and they
• 21:41
  did confirm with me. And what I did was I gave him
• 21:45
  some hypotheticals. Because when you have your own
• 21:48
  business, this studio that we're in right now is in my house.
• 21:54
  And because we're using it, and because I'm using it to produce
• 21:57
  content, that means that this fraction of my house is
• 22:01
  deductible from my mortgage. Which is practically.
• 22:04
  Hypothetically, you can deduct a lot of space from your house for
• 22:07
  Home Office expenses. Which, yeah, which is practical,
• 22:12
  but does have limitations, especially based on your
• 22:14
  mortgage amount and how much of the space you're using and if
• 22:18
  that space is entirely dedicated to work or only partially
• 22:21
  dedicated to work. So another good plug for talk to
• 22:25
  a professional. Yeah.
• 22:26
  And I was warned by my tax advisor that deducting more,
• 22:30
  deducting Home Office mortgage costs is a little bit of a flag.
• 22:35
  So there might be a visit from the IRS.
• 22:38
  You may be audited. Which you do want to pay real
• 22:41
  close attention to all your receipts then, because if they
• 22:43
  come and I do pay for this gentleman to file my taxes and
• 22:47
  that comes with audit insurance to work, he would be a buffer
• 22:50
  between me and the IRS. But yeah, I was going to talk
• 22:54
  about about healthcare. The net amount when you're
• 22:59
  self-employed was really important because when I talked
• 23:01
  to a health insurance broker, I was able to then state, you
• 23:06
  know, what if I make X amount of dollars by the end of the year?
• 23:11
  And he did tell me that at least in Idaho.
• 23:13
  And talk to an insurance broker about this if you're concerned
• 23:16
  about healthcare. So not a tax professional, an
• 23:18
  actual insurance broker. This is a separate yes, yes,
• 23:23
  but. There were plans that were
• 23:25
  available for a, you know, very, very small premium.
• 23:31
  That was surprising to me. And the nice thing about it is
• 23:36
  that if, as long as you have your monthly bills figured out
• 23:41
  and the minimum amount of net profit that you need to have,
• 23:45
  then if you have a really busy month and you make a whole bunch
• 23:49
  of money that you didn't foresee coming.
• 23:52
  That would be a really great time, hypothetically, to spend
• 23:55
  some of that extra cash on that new camera that you wanted or
• 23:59
  that new lens that you wanted. You wanted to, you know.
• 24:03
  Expand into portraits and you need that portrait lens.
• 24:07
  Yeah. Upgrading equipment or maybe you
• 24:10
  decide that hey, that travel vlog, since I am a videographer
• 24:15
  and my YouTube channel is a little bit low on content, maybe
• 24:18
  I need to talk to my tax professional.
• 24:20
  If I can make a travel vlog and go out of town and spend that
• 24:23
  money and then it's coming right off the top of your income.
• 24:27
  All hypothetically, all of this is I'm also realizing what a
• 24:31
  United States focused episode this is.
• 24:34
  Oh yes, I could we we maybe could have prefaced that at the
• 24:38
  start of the episode. I'm so sorry.
• 24:39
  Sorry for everybody in UK, Australia that listens to us.
• 24:43
  Hopefully you can kind of edify us in comments or send us an
• 24:47
  e-mail and. Let us or laugh about the
• 24:48
  differences in our healthcare systems.
• 24:50
  That's how it's entertaining, too.
• 24:52
  The healthcare thing, you know, that was that doesn't even.
• 24:54
  That was the one that I was like, oh wait, this isn't just
• 24:56
  U.S. tax code. This is yeah, but.
• 24:59
  For those of you that are, that are not in the United States,
• 25:02
  quitting your job when you have health insurance is terrifying.
• 25:07
  And it was terrifying for me. And I didn't know what was going
• 25:12
  on. I was just going to just not
• 25:14
  have health insurance because it was super expensive, I thought.
• 25:17
  But then if you just, you know, do some digging, there are
• 25:21
  options for you. There are people you can talk to
• 25:23
  who are experienced in this and one thing, and I assume most
• 25:27
  states have this, I cannot guarantee that.
• 25:30
  I should have double checked that.
• 25:31
  But here we have something called the Small Business
• 25:34
  Development Center. It's part of the Idaho Commerce.
• 25:39
  Oh, OK Department, I think. Right on.
• 25:41
  Oh, God, I hope that's right. Sounds good.
• 25:43
  Yeah, I know it's the Small Business Development Center, and
• 25:46
  they have a lot of these resources.
• 25:48
  They have people you can talk to directly for insurance things.
• 25:51
  They have people you can talk to about the tax details.
• 25:54
  They even have like, business and marketing professionals to
• 25:56
  help you get started on the right foot and know kind of what
• 25:59
  you're doing. And they review business plans
• 26:01
  with you. They're actually a really
• 26:02
  valuable resource. I assume if Idaho has this, most
• 26:06
  states must. I can't guarantee that, but it's
• 26:09
  a really valuable program and just a cool place to go if you
• 26:15
  need help. That was where I went when I was
• 26:16
  starting my first business in college, when I was starting a
• 26:19
  bakery. Nice.
• 26:22
  Which I did. Definitely did not write off
• 26:24
  taxes appropriately for that one.
• 26:26
  Oops, that's a lot of initial costs too.
• 26:28
  All the food, all the flour and eggs.
• 26:31
  All the food and all the. Eggs now especially.
• 26:33
  Maybe I'll start a baking business just so I can afford or
• 26:35
  at least I can deduct my egg costs.
• 26:37
  Yeah, all of a sudden you can have eggs for breakfast again.
• 26:39
  Congratulations. Well maybe I'll just start a
• 26:41
  YouTube channel where I review eggs since I have all the camera
• 26:43
  equipment anyway there. We go, OK with some, wow, that
• 26:47
  was almost a word, Wow, some deductions that I would like to
• 26:52
  discuss. OK.
• 26:53
  If that's OK, If I kind of piggyback on what you were
• 26:56
  talking about, yeah, would be the, of course, it's going to be
• 27:00
  marketing and promotional stuff for your films and your
• 27:03
  business. So if you end up going to a Film
• 27:06
  Festival, in addition to being able to deduct some of those
• 27:09
  costs, if you're printing business cards, Flyers and
• 27:12
  handouts, you have a website built for your movie, anything
• 27:17
  like that, all of those promotional things are a part of
• 27:21
  your budget. Yeah.
• 27:22
  And you can write that right off the top of any income that you
• 27:25
  make or you just write that off of your 0 income, which a lot of
• 27:29
  film makers are live in that reality as far as profitability
• 27:33
  of their films. That is the thing.
• 27:34
  Yeah. And is anything else that you'd
• 27:36
  like to cover on the business end of things?
• 27:39
  Those, those were really the big ones.
• 27:41
  The other thing that I would suggest as far as starting your
• 27:44
  business is when you're ready to go file the paperwork.
• 27:49
  If LegalZoom or whatever you decide you want to file your
• 27:53
  business paperwork with just looks too expensive, but just
• 27:56
  going to your Secretary of State's website feels too
• 28:01
  daunting. There is a middle ground.
• 28:03
  You can go to your local bank, preferably credit union,
• 28:09
  wherever you plan to do your business banking and talk to
• 28:13
  them and they can help walk you through some of the steps of
• 28:16
  actually filing the paperwork for your business or ADBA or
• 28:20
  getting your EIN. In some cases they can even do
• 28:23
  that for you, at least get the EIN for you if you really just
• 28:26
  do not feel comfortable doing those things yourself.
• 28:28
  But they'll at least have a good place for you to start to
• 28:30
  understand what type of business you should be starting, the
• 28:33
  implications of it, the best resources for you, just speak to
• 28:37
  a financial advisor at your local credit union and or bank.
• 28:40
  It's usually free. I can't imagine they would
• 28:42
  charge you for just consulting and sitting down and talking
• 28:45
  with them. And they are a wealth of
• 28:48
  knowledge about this sort of thing, so.
• 28:50
  Yeah, there's a lot of resources out there, but before you make
• 28:53
  that big purchase, it's so worth it to spend the time to talk to
• 28:58
  some professionals that know what they're doing because it
• 29:01
  could save you thousands of dollars.
• 29:04
  Literally thousands of dollars, hypothetically.
• 29:07
  Hypothetically. Well, shall we succinctly say
• 29:10
  goodbye? I think we should hypothetically
• 29:12
  say goodbye, bye, bye.