My Man Mark's Zen Feng Shui and The Art Of Dancer Tax Filing...

Yup, that evil American holiday is upon us again...and I'm not referring to the first couple weeks of bad Idol auditions. Actually, my friends, it's time to file the tax returns and I want to alleviate some of the dread that typically accompanies all those torturous W-2, 1099, IT-2, Copy B, R2d2, and C3PO forms the IRS conjures up. For me, this past year probably won't rank on the Top Ten Years of My Life, (and then again, hindsight tends to reveal the hidden value in lessons learned in tough times) but it certainly wasn't horrible. In any case, I was a little worried that with all the freelance, 1099 work that I had done, I might actually end up in the negative red column and have to send a check in. Let's just say its a GOOD THING I didn't try to do my own taxes, because I simply was not AWARE and CONSCIOUS of what my situation was. First of all, thank god for VITA, which is the Equity Volunteer Income Tax Service, I know that some people knock these guys and swear by Jackson Hewitt and H&R Block...but I give those naysayers a big WHATEV, and say kudos to VITA. My man this year was named Mark, and I title him "my man" in the most street cred-respectable way possible because, my man Mark KNOWS what he's talkin' about. First of all, he clued me in on a cool little thing called the QPA...something EVERY NYC dancer needs to be aware of. Here's what he told me, basically QPA (or Qualified Performing Aritist) is a special designation, that if you meet the requirements(ie struggling your ass off) can save you a ton of money. Actually, the requirements that you need to meet are pretty specific, but I have a hunch that a lot of young, NYC dancers probably fall into this category. Most importantly is the magic number $16,000: you HAVE to be under this amount for your annual income. Secondly, you need to have had TWO, theatrical art related employers where you made more than $250. Those are the two requirements that you have to meet, and if you do, we'll talk about the prize you get in a second. But lets just break those two qualifications down. First, the $16,000 is pretty easy to figure out, either you made more than that or less than that. But the two employers thing is a little tricky, basically they MUST be W2 jobs(not 1099 freelance gigs), and you have to have made more than $250 at each of them. My man Mark told me that every year he gets actors and models who come in with a stack of theatrical related 1099s and NONE of them count towards your QPA status...which sucks, because here is the juicy part. Normally, people can either add up all their write-off itemized deductions for the year(dance classes, books, movies, etc) OR they can take the standard IRS deduction(this year it was $5353 or something like that), whichever is more. BUT if you are a QPA, you can deduct ALL your itemized performer-related deductions, ON TOP of the standard IRS deduction. So lets say you made $15000 for the year, which is not unheard of for a lot of struggling artists. But you had $6000 in itemized write-offs, PLUS the $5353 freebie from the good old GuvMent...add those together, and you "actually" made $3647(and your tax on this amount will be A LOT less than on $15,000, in other words you might end up getting all your money back). But you have to be sure that you have those two, art-related, over $250, W2 employers in your stack of forms. Anyway, hope this helps, whether you qualify for it this year or not, its still important to be aware of these types of things!