April 15th is fast approaching, which for singers, bands, performers, and musicians across the country, is a fearful date: something about all that legal jargon and red tape just doesn’t energize a creative mind in the same way. Following Lil Wayne’s recent income tax bill for a whopping $5.6 million, we thought we should share a few last minute helpful tips, ideas, and reminders on deductibles, seeing as the independent artist can often take deductions that are normally not available to most people. Oh, and there’s additional good news this year: April 15th coincides with a District of Columbia holiday, and so all 2010 tax payments are instead due on Monday, April 18.

Common tax deductibles for musicians and performers in the music industry

- Instrument purchases, rental, repair and maintenance.
- Subscriptions and purchases of Billboard / Rolling Stone Magazine and other trade publications.
- Being a service that you use to find employment, your subscription to Music Jobs is tax deductible.
- Stage clothes/makeup (but you can’t use the clothes for everyday use.)
- Remember how We Are the World 25 for Haiti and MTV’s Hope for Haiti encouraged you to donate to charity? Deduct your contributions.
- Rehearsal hall, studio, office or storage rental.
- Music Lessons.
- Memberships in professional associations and the unions.
- Website and email database setup and maintenance costs.
- Production of physical promotional materials; CDs, photos, newsletters, USB giveaways.
- Lucky/smart enough to have some professional earplugs made up? Deduct away!
- Whilst away from home, you can deduct 100% of travel and accommodation…
- And 50% of business meal expenses – while on tour, all of your meals are business meals.
- Report payments to other musicians. Legal fees are also deductible. (Note: You must send a 1099 to any independent contractor, such as the extra guitarist you hire for the tour, to whom you pay $600 or more.)

Finally, a little soundtrack to give you the motivational kick you may need Happy filing!

The Music Jobs Team.

ArtistData is an innovative tool for the independent musician and can certainly help music job members seeking to make the most of their time and efforts. They build solutions to help an artist save time with the “monotonous updating” of their online music profiles, Myspace calendars, Facebook and Twitter updates, and the endless stream of concert calendars and gig websites. Being able to enter the data once, to the ArtistData website, then allows more time for being creative – something that is at the core of every musician.

Named a “Top 10 Indie Marketing Tool” by Hypebot, the Chicago-based ArtistData has created a lot of buzz recently. Rian Rochford of Universal Motown / Universal Republic says “ArtistData has provided a priceless tool enabling us to provide accurate and up to date artist info in the most efficient way possible”, and the site has also been awarded a Chicago Innovations People’s Choice Award.

Founder Brenden Mulligan was interviewed by Tim Jahn for part iof his Beyond the Pedway creative businesses series. Here he speaks about the about starting of the company, and also how artists and startups are alike.

Having only recently discovered ArtistData, I am still learning how to best use it for my music career, but can already see the possibilities of being far more efficient, and also being able to reach new markets and create new opportunities with the tools offered. It is always exciting to see new companies emerge in this ever-changing new music industry, and I feel that ArtistData is sure to be a part of that.

If anyone has any use of the website, please contribute! Post your comments here in the music jobs blog.

Lee Jarvis.