What counts as income could surprise you!
You need to be aware of anything related to your content creation that could be viewed as income. Same examples could be;
• Payments from platforms based on the number of times content is viewed;
• subscriptions;
• payments for promoting products or brands in a content creator’s online content;
• payments for advertisements embedded in the online content;
• commissions earned from affiliate marketing and links;
• sales of merchandise;
• donations or gifts (including non-monetary gifts); and
• prize money (for example, from e-sports competitions).
Some things are easy to see as income, like your AdSense is easy to tell that this is income, however things like gifts, experiences maybe harder see as income.. however, they most likely are income.
The next big question that you may have, well what value do these items have?
The Inland revenue department (IRD) have released some statements on this, however they can be very confusing to understand. If you contact us today, we can go over how you need to declare this income, and the pit falls to be aware of.
You also need to be aware that donations, such as Patreon, where people are giving you money to support you in your journey. This in most cases is income! There can be times when it isn’t, say if your Nana gives you some money to help you out as she sees that you are enjoying doing this, well that most likely isn’t income, but most other cases the money is income, and you need to include this in your tax return.
Another confusion can be around prize money. We all know that if you win the Lotto you do not need to pay taxes on this so why do you need to declare prize money? Well, it all comes down to the fact that this is in relation to your business activity. If you are in the business of gaming, going to the e-sports competitions helps to build your platform, it will most likely be more than one off, and so the IRD will see this as income.
Please talk to us today if you need help in what you should be declaring to the IRD.