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Showing posts with the label Amanda Palmer

Crowdfunding and Taxes

If you are raising money via crowdfunding, do you need to pay taxes? The tricky question is how do you define income from a crowdfunding campaign? You might try to define income as a donation in order to avoid paying taxes. Unfortunately, I don't think this works. Any money derived from an investment effort leading to the delivery of a commercial product is typically taxable, since Federal and State entities see this revenue as ‘income.’ As a result, any ‘project’ in this category is going to be levied at prevailing tax rates, whether it is offered as art, technology, or manufactured goods. No matter you want to manufacture a bike, make a movie, or create a video game, you need to pay taxes. The only exception is Non-Profit (NP) or Non-Government Organization (NGO), and you need to get recognition from the IRS for these. Of course, taxes are based on income. The cost of reward fulfillment can be considered an expense. My suggestion is to recognize the cost of reward fulf...

Raise a million, spend $900,000. Keep $100,000.

Interesting blog post by someone  (AFP and The Grand Theft Orchestra)   who raised a million on Kickstarter. Read her blog posting for more detail. She describes where the money went: Old bills and paying back bank loans $250,000.00 CD book manufacturing and shipping costs $105,000.00 Vinyl production costs $30,000.00 Art books $80,000.00 Art book production costs $15,000.00 Neil and Kyle books $30,000.00 100 Turntable packages $15,000.00 Arts and Crafts 7 inch packages $30,000.00 Six City Tour $10,000.00 House parties $10,000.00 Art party visual artists $20,000.00 Commissions $150,000.00 Four or five music videos $80,000.00 Kickstarter and Amazon fees $75,000.00 TOTAL $900,000.00 The first thing to note is the first item. What old bills? Bank loans? $250,000? That 25% of the raise . Commissions? $150,000? Most s...