Freelance Writing Jobs for April 15, 2009
April 15, 2009 by Deb
Filed under Writing Gigs
Dame mit Kaffeetasse by Emile Eisman-Semenowsky
So, I’m trying to think of a tip of the day for today’s writing leads post and as I look up I realize it’s April 15th. I thought in honor of the occasion we’d talk about taxes. As the wife of an accountant I can tell you freelance taxes are a pain in the butt. What makes life easier for some is to file quarterly. Also, don’t forget to research your deductions. For instance, since my office is only used as my office and nothing else, I can deduct all the resources used to heat and send power to there.
What are some of your favorite tax tips for freelancers?
And…make sure you make time to visit every day in May. We’re celebrating our 4th anniversary and have a ton of giveaways happening!
Leads…
- Seeking Reporters - The Jewish State – Green Brook, NJ
- New York Media Blogger
- Domain & Hosting Blogger
- Sports Blogger
- Blogger Needed for Entertainment Gossip Blog
- Blue Moutain Arts is Looking for Greeting Card Writers
- Game Guides Online Looking for MMO Players to Update Strategy Guide – $500
- Taiwan Publisher Looking for Writer for “English for Tourism” Book
- Scientific Technical Writer – On-Site Freelance Opportunity in Frederick MD – $32/hour
- Temporary Web Writer – Cleveland OH
- Experienced Copywriters Needed
- Screenwriters Needed ASAP - Chicago
- Technical Writer
- Jim Rome Show Looking for a Writer
- Business Plan Writer
- Freelance English/Spanish Translator
- Writer/Editor for Website Content
- Freelance Journalists Wanted for Paranormal Project
- Music/Art/Book Reviews Wanted – $35/column – Glendale
- Grant Writer Needed
- Lime Wire Music Blog Seeks Freelance Writers
- Freelance Writer for Music Blog
- Writes for Golf Website
- Print Marketing Website – $15 – $25
- Hardcore Punk Writer/Blogger - $25 – $75
- Keyword Articles - $10/article
- Looking for Editors
- Contract Technical Writer
Have a great day, all! Keep those tips and successs stories coming!
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Yays! Tax day!
Thanks for the early leads. Deb.
Anyone going to a Tea Party today?
I don’t know who the fools were that were emailing you on April 10 about not getting your leads up early enough and “ruining” the blog but that is very, very sad. Like my brother used to say, “What do you want for nothing? Your money back?” I am overwhelmingly appreciative of what you do. Between your leads and those on the About Freelance Writing site, I have secured a number of terrific jobs and am on my way to a successful freelance writing career. THANK YOU (yes, I meant to shout because I am very happy) for all you do!!!
Oh, tax tips…
Business expenses. Find ways to incorporate writing into your recreational activities. For example, when I went to the Sequoias last year, I wrote about events between rangers, campers and a certain bear whose fate was sealed while I was there, and they were literally published in the mag before I left!. I was able to write off portions of the trip.
For me it’s easy because of my niche, but it’s not hard to find creative ways to incorporate everything in to anything, especially with a great editor.
Thanks Deb, another list full of interesting variety. I am the wife of an accountant, too
I have to say, it makes tax day a lot less stressful, especially with self-employed and estimated taxes, which definitely are a pain. I hope others are in good shape for the deadline today.
Hey, great list!
The Freelance Writer for Music Blog kinks to a Freelance Beauty Writer Wanted for Blog posting.
Links, not kinks. Sigh. My fingers are freezing and tend not to work as well. Not sure what’s going on with my brain!
The requirements for being able to deduct a home office drive me crazy. I use my bedroom as an office about 15 hours a day and as a bedroom for about five, yet I can’t deduct it. I live in New York. Apartments are often tiny. There is no place I can put a separate “home office.” I’ve asked my accountant if we can just try deducting it and see what happens, but he’s too honest and by-the-books, I guess, sigh. I need to hook up with someone a little more unscrupulous.
My tax tip: maintain a mileage log throughout the year with the odometer, destination, etc. I found it much easier to log the info as I went rather than sitting down at the end of the year/quarter and digging up the numbers. I know it sounds simple, but it’s easy to overlook.
@Skippy,
I agree with your accountant – perhaps I’m too scrupulous too! But can you partition off the sleeping space and write off the rest, or partition off the desk/work area and write off that portion? See what he says before you go to the trouble – but it’s worth asking.
As for my tax tips – the main one is that I keep track of all my income and expenses as the year progresses, making it easier to fill out the tax forms come tax day. One advantage of doing this is that because my income is so variable, I can also file a form that allows me to pay estimated taxes based on how much I actually profit in each reporting period instead of basing them on a quarter of my expected income.
I forgot to say – thanks for the leads, Deb!
@skippy:
Another thumbs-up for your accountant… the deduction is for the percentage of your apartment *dedicated* as a working space. Claiming that deduction is like throwing a brick at the hornets’ nest that is the IRS audit division. Unless a significant portion of your apartment is used for writing – and NOTHING ELSE – it’s not worth the risk.
@Deb:
Thanks for all the work you put into this site to help newbs like me hit the ground running. Have a cuppa joe on me.
Anyone ever follow the greeting card writer leads from Blue Mountain or any other company? As for the taxes, my kids use the office a few times a week for homework and music downloading, so I am out of luck on the office deduction. Appreciate the leads!
I write about film. I am reminded of these perks on special days like today.
Thanks for the leads!!
@ Skippy:
When I was running a construction company in Colorado, I had a brilliant accountant. While technically your apartment is indeed too small, if *any* portion of it is used for your office/work, then you should be able to deduct it. As I recall, the law in Colorado stated that up to 20% of your house/apartment could be considered deductible, so I just had my accountant deduct the maximum 20%.
I generally made over 55k but less than 65k…but I never had to pay taxes on more than 15-20k worth of income. The things you can write off as legitimate expenses are plentiful, and there’s nothing wrong with working the loopholes in the system to your advantage. There’s nothing unscrupulous about it. The loopholes exist. Use them to your advantage.
I deducted everything I possibly could. Cell phone bill, all my clothing, every meal I ate out (although only a percentage can be considered actual “business” meals…still, I was usually able to write off a large portion of this), all my office equipment, the gas in my vehicle, my health, vehicle, and renter’s insurance…anything and everything.
ATM I’m in a particularly interesting situation and I’m still figuring out how it works. Last year I made little/no income because we were transitioning overseas. I literally only made a few thousand over the whole year, and you don’t have to file if you make under a certain amount. This year I’m waiting to see how it ends up because as I live internationally I’m still required to file if I make over 12k USD as the head of the household, but I can make up to 80k USD from non-US sources and not have to pay a red cent. I’m trying really hard to keep the majority of my income from non-US sources so I don’t break the head-of-household cap, because I’d rather not have to pay anything if I can
But in any case…I’d find a different accountant, one who isn’t afraid to use the loopholes that exist. Remember, they aren’t illegal; they are simply little-known loopholes that most people know nothing about. If you are self-employed you can write off a slew of things that most people wouldn’t even consider. My favorite is “entertainment” expenses. EVERY time you go out for dinner, make sure you get the receipt. Have your friends give you cash, but you pay the bill. This way you can keep the maximum possible. I remember one year I was able to deduct nearly 12k USD from my overall income simply from “business meals”. Every little penny counts.
Re: Tax Loopholes.
I side with Mark on this one. I had a boss who used dinners out, mileage he drove to those dinners out and every other thing he could think of. He’d hand us his credit card and tell us to go have lunch and he’d write it off. Four years later, he was audited and the stress he faced certainly wasn’t worth the money he saved. Especially not when they deemed some of these expenditures to be suspicious and charged him back taxes and penalties.
Gee, I wonder why he got audited.
There’s a limit to what you can get away with, and the trick is to go into it not as a “loophole” but as a “trip expense”.
E.V.E.R.Y. item I write off is physically connected to a paying income. I go into this knowing I stand a good chance of being audited. I also know I’ll be able to prove each one of the expenses I write off.
To each his own, I suppose. I know that every thing I’ve ever done had a legitimate expense behind it, but some of them were very much loopholed.
For example one of the trips I took to Europe was a vacation, pure and simple. But while I was on that vacation I did a bid for my mother-in-law on a project I knew I would never realistically get because I was a foreign contractor. But because I did the bid, I was able to write the entire 6 thousand dollar trip off as a business venture.
Different people will give you different advice, but my personal advice is: don’t be paranoid of the tax man. Trust your accountant, but push the limits of every single deduction to maximize your potential. If you can get away with only paying 1500-2k a year on 60k a year income, I’d say that’s doing just fine. I remember in one case my father’s company, in its early days, relied on a revolving tax system. He owned a multi-million dollar construction company as well as a dairy farm. He would burn up his excess money from the construction company in heavy equipment for the farm, thus burying the money in deductions. I remember one year his brother rose a stink because he had to pay something around 35k in taxes on 350k worth of income, while my dad cleared 1.2 million and only paid 6k in taxes because he was able to claim so many deductions.
25 years of business and never had any issues for him. I can’t speak the same for everyone, but my general opinion is that most people are way too paranoid of the IRS. As long as you know that what you are doing isn’t illegal, simply taking advantage of a loophole, you have nothing to worry about.
T.W.,
Just a thought about the difference between “income” and “revenue” – I know lots of business people think of them as the same, but to the IRS they are quite different. Revenue, or gross receipts, refers to how much money was paid to your business by clients or customers. After you deduct your legitimate expenses, you come up with the amount of income on which to pay taxes.
The IRS has very specific limitations on how much foreign travel you can write off and under what circumstances. I’m all for taking every deduction I can – but only the ones that I know won’t get me in trouble later on. You can read more about deducting business expenses in this article I wrote:
http://www.nuwireinvestor.com/articles/tips-for-deducting-business-travel-expenses-52155.aspx.
I would love to hear from any Canadian freelancers out there who may be able to answer some tax/business end related questions for me!
Please drop me an adrie@adriesantos.com
Much appreciated!
I’d be very careful about deducting clothing. The only legitimate deductions are uniforms that are required for work (as I understand it).
I only have a 1 BR place, but I have a section of space where my desk is. It has it’s own specific area and I use it for work. I figure up how much square footage just that space is and use that for my home office deduction. It’s my understanding that it’s legitimate as long as I use it just for my business, which I do. If I could partition it off, I would, but that’s just not possible because we rent. But it’s still a dedicated work space.
I procrastinated this year. I normally do my taxes in February. This year, I did them on the 11th. I’m going to try to keep up on things this year so I can get back to doing them early. Much less stress.
@Becky – My husband wears steel toed boots for work and we are able to deduct the expense of those. He only wears them for work though and he could only deduct the amount he paid because the company paid for a portion of them.
And you do have to only use your computer area for work and nothing else, no chatting to friends, no bill paying that isn’t work related, etc. In my case, my kids need the computer for school homework. It’s mandatory with both of them (middle school and high school) that homework is typed out and then printed or emailed to the teacher. So for me, deducting the square footage is useless. The day will come when we can move out of here and into a home with a private office (and 2nd bathroom) but for now, we make do with what we have.