Taxes and authors: What you should know in 2021

In his TAA webinar presentation, “Taxes & Authors: What You Should Know in 2021“, Robert Pesce, a partner with Marcum LLP, provided guidance on when it is beneficial for authors to form a business entity, strategies for managing business income and expenses, and how the qualified business income deduction (QBI) applies to authors.

As soon as your authoring efforts produce income in excess of $400, you are officially running a business – whether you define a business entity or not. According to Pesce, any income in excess of $400 must be reported on a Schedule C filed with your tax return and is subject to self-employment tax.

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Proposed IRS regulations issued providing guidance on new 20% deduction for flow-through entities

The IRS and Treasury issued proposed regulations providing interim guidance on the new Section 199A 20% deduction on Qualified Business Income (QBI) introduced under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. The law contains a series of complex provisions, definitions and computations, many of which are addressed by the Service. The preamble to the regulations provides that taxpayers can rely on this guidance until such time that final regulations are issued.

This new provision of the Internal Revenue Code allows owners of sole proprietorships, S corporations, LLCs, or partnerships a deduction of up to 20% of the income earned by the business.

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Tax tips for authors: Learn how your agent is reporting your writing income

One of the things that can affect your tax returns is the income that you report from writing in the form of royalties, advances, etc. Many of you will have literary agents and those agents will report to you what you’ve earned at the end of a year on a 1099. While the IRS says that agencies are supposed to report to their clients the gross income amount that was received, most agencies report on the net basis, and the IRS doesn’t seem to be aware of, or care about that. But as an author, you really need to know on what basis your agent is reporting income because it could potentially affect your tax return.

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