Business expense

A business expense is an expense caused by your professional activity. It reduces profit and therefore tax. Two things are required: a recognisable connection with the activity, and proof that the expense actually arose.

Typical items in this profession

• Travel costs to the shoot or casting: train, flight, kilometres in your own car, parking. Insofar as the production reimburses them, see expenses.
• Overnight stay if a shoot requires travel the evening before.
• Health tests you pay yourself. The STI-Panel for shoots of this agency is borne by the production; extra tests of your own stay with you.
• Recordings and editing for the Sedcard, portfolio, website, domain and hosting.
• Tools: camera, lights, microphone, tripod, laptop, software, storage.
• A share of phone and internet costs, measured by the professional share of use.
• Advice and administration: tax advice, legal advice on contracts, account fees, specialist literature.

The line to private living

The principle is: costs of ordinary living are not deductible, even if they benefit the profession. Food, housing, ordinary clothing and body care belong there. An expense is deductible only when it can be clearly separated from the private sphere.

Exactly here sits the standing conflict in this profession, and it does not help to dress it up: cosmetics, hairdresser, fitness, hair removal and clothing are regularly classified by the tax office as private — with the argument that these expenses also arise without the profession and personal appearance is a private matter. That they are professionally necessary rarely convinces in practice.

Better chances sit with items that cannot be used privately. A costume worn only on set, a prop, a makeup service paid for a concrete shoot. The difference sits in the provability of exclusively professional use, not in the label on the receipt.

Do not therefore count on the effort for appearance and fitness being reflected in tax, even if it is professionally real. Anyone who builds that into their calculation calculates too optimistically and finds in the first tax assessment that the profit comes out higher than expected.

How you keep the risk small

Note on every receipt what the expense was for and which booking it belongs to. For mixed-use things — phone, internet, vehicle — determine a comprehensible professional share and apply it consistently. For larger purchases check whether the costs have to be spread over the useful life; the relevant amounts change and belong asked.

Do not run disputed items in secret, but openly and with reasons. If a position is struck, it stays at the striking; anyone who conceals risks more. How all expenses enter the profit calculation is under cash-basis profit calculation.

This list places the practice in context and is not a substitute for tax advice. What is recognised in your case is decided by the tax office.