Would You Recommend Getting An Accountant?

[HannahC998]

Hi! So this is my first year camming, and I understand you need to file taxes. I am in the US. I have been keeping track of my earnings and expenses. I believe I could just use TurboTax to file, but I'm wondering if I should get an accountant. My thinking was they would help me find deductions or anything else I may of missed.
I've never filed taxes before, my mom was always able to claim me as a dependent, but this year I'm on my own.

 

[Deleted member 37064]

I can't speak from a camming perspective. But, I've found that Turbo Tax is better at describing deductions than the three different accountants I've worked with. The only reason I used an accountant when I was self-employed is that I was an S-Corp and they did everything. Didn't feel was worth the money. Unless I get into a really complex tax situation again and I can't figure it out, I will stick with Turbo Tax (I'm currently a W-2 employee). I think most small business owners, and self-employed individuals can easily use Turbo Tax.

 

[LilyOhRiley]

I personally use a sex work-friendly accountant because I simply don't have enough fucks to try and do it on my own. It's more expensive than picking up a copy of Turbo Tax, but I enjoy being able to hand over my giant spreadsheet of info and have him do it for me.

Speaking of that, I can highly recommend Shoeboxed (shoeboxed.com - includes a referral link) for receipt tracking and MileIQ (mileiq.com - also includes a referral link) for tracking deductible miles. Both have seriously saved my ass in terms of keeping track of my nonsense.

And then once I have all that tracked and organized at the end of the year I just bundle everything into a spreadsheet - message me if you want and I'll send you a copy - that has a bunch of preloaded equations to total everything up and send it to my dude.

 

[Deleted member 37064]

I personally use a sex work-friendly accountant because I simply don't have enough fucks to try and do it on my own. It's more expensive than picking up a copy of Turbo Tax, but I enjoy being able to hand over my giant spreadsheet of info and have him do it for me.

Speaking of that, I can highly recommend Shoeboxed (shoeboxed.com - includes a referral link) for receipt tracking and MileIQ (mileiq.com - also includes a referral link) for tracking deductible miles. Both have seriously saved my ass in terms of keeping track of my nonsense.

And then once I have all that tracked and organized at the end of the year I just bundle everything into a spreadsheet - message me if you want and I'll send you a copy - that has a bunch of preloaded equations to total everything up and send it to my dude.

That's the part that gets me about accountants doing my taxes. With having to tally everything up like this, they're assuming we know all the deductions, and I've rarely been asked questions about things I might have missed. If I ask the questions, I get the blank stare or "you're a dumbass" look. If I've already categorized and totalled everything up, why the fuck am I paying your ass big money just to plug it into fields and then you tell me how much I owe or might get back?

 

[JoleneBrody]

Yes yes yes get an accountant. Do yourself a HUGE favor and get yourself a sex work friendly CPA like Cameron. He is Taxxxguy on twitter. He’s been my CPA for many years and I would die without him. He found so many deductions I would have never even thought about, after working with him for many years and using HnR block the first, I’m convinced you are literally throwing away money to do anything else in this biz unless you are already very knowlegable when it comes to small business taxes and changing tax laws. I wouldn’t have even known that I needed to be an S-corp or how to do any of that without him.

 

[SaffronBurke]

I'm cheap and lazy, I've been using TurboTax forever.

 

[LilyOhRiley]

That's the part that gets me about accountants doing my taxes. With having to tally everything up like this, they're assuming we know all the deductions, and I've rarely been asked questions about things I might have missed. If I ask the questions, I get the blank stare or "you're a dumbass" look. If I've already categorized and totalled everything up, why the fuck am I paying your ass big money just to plug it into fields and then you tell me how much I owe or might get back?

See, my guy gave me an extensive list of categories that I could deduct and then we have a sit down to go over those exact details - perhaps I just got lucky, but I've always gotten to ask as many questions as I could come up with and he's incredibly helpful.

 

[Deleted member 37064]

See, my guy gave me an extensive list of categories that I could deduct and then we have a sit down to go over those exact details - perhaps I just got lucky, but I've always gotten to ask as many questions as I could come up with and he's incredibly helpful.

That's great to hear and those kinds of people are good to have. The three different accountants I had, all were independent and not associated with each other, never did any of this. No lists, no questions. When I went to Turbo Tax, I found that the amount of my deductions almost tripled and I paid a fraction of the cost.

 

[JickyJuly]

I haven't made enough to need deductions since having kids. It really depends on what you pull in and what your filing numbers look like.

 

[AmberCutie]

For a first year I think TurboTax is probably fine, but as you get to earning more and more and making many more purchases that are directly supporting your cam career, having an accountant would be good.

TurboTax does walk you through any deductions you might qualify for. Hopefully you've been saving receipts for purchases you've made to enhance your cam persona.

I second what @JoleneBrody said about hiring Taxxxguy for your future needs.

 

[Nikola Tesla]

this year I'm on my own.

Welcome to adulting.

 

[Natalie_Lavender]

I actually met with an accountant last month, who is familiar with “streaming”, as he is the one that does the taxes for my Twitch gamer friend. He told me it’s not necessary to use an accountant unless you make over $40,000 from streaming alone. I’m on the cusp of that for streaming, but well over combined with my vanilla job. He told me using something like TurboTax would be fine this year, but we will revisit everything again in Jan/Feb, since I plan to file for my LLC.
I asked him about spending a certain amount on work related items, and he said they all count towards your taxable income, so subtracted from. You don’t have to have spent X amount over the course of the year.

I’m sure I’m leaving out something from our conversation, but this was the majority of it.

 

[HiGirlsRHot]

Understanding, how the tax system works is one of those good adulting skills to pick up. You understand it better if you use TurboTax, than if just collect a bunch of paperwork and hand it over to an accountant. I've saved a lot of money by learning the tax system over the years, although there were certainly years an accountant could have saved me money.

The new tax law doubles the standard deduction and should simplify tax filing for most people since it is unlikely you can come up with more than $12,000 for sex toys, computers, camera, travel, home office business expense and other things that camgirls can deduct. You can probably even use the free version of TurboTax.

That being said taxes are a lot more complicated for a self-employed people and checking with an accountant as Natalia did is a good idea.

 

[KylieJacobs]

I used Turbo Tax this past year since my accountant messed up my taxes the past 2 years missing huge deductions! Luckily I noticed the error each time.

I was very impressed with how they walk you through everything... and I'm someone who only knows the basics when it comes to taxes.