Please note:  the 2017 Tax Cuts & Jobs Act changed the treatment of hobby expenses.

For many of us food bloggers, blogging is a way of LIVING THE DREAM (AKA making money by doing something we really enjoy).  While making money is wonderful, from a tax perspective, the lower your net income (that is, income earned less eligible expenses) the less tax you have to pay come April 15th.  My first Taxes for Food Bloggers post discussed the important issue of determining whether your blogging activities are business or hobby related.  Once you make that key determination, the next step is to identify any expenses you’re able to deduct to offset your blogging income.  Note that starting in 2018, hobby expenses are no longer deductible.  This means the below expenses are only deductible if your food blog is classified as a business.

Good news, friends.

There are LOTS of eligible expenses you can claim on your tax return,  and moreover, plenty of tools to help you with your taxes to boot!  But before you can deduct an expense, you must determine whether the expense was incurred solely for blog purposes, solely for personal purposes, or a mixture of both.  Generally speaking, expenses related to personal usage (i.e., not blog related) are not tax deductible.  (Insert collective “dangit” here.)  Mixed-used expenses must be allocated between the portion related to personal use and blogging use.

For example:  HOME INTERNET EXPENSE.  Let’s say you spend $50 a month for internet.  If your blog is the sole purpose for having internet access at your home, the whole amount ($50 * 12 months = $600) is deductible.  Granted, most of us access the internet for more than just blogging, and thus, home internet is a mixed-use expense.  Bloggers must determine the proportion of their total internet usage time that relates to blogging usage versus personal usage.  So, if a blogger determines his or her home internet usage to be 60% blog related, then 60% of the expense is deductible (60% * $600 = $360), while the remaining 40% ($240) is a nondeductible personal expense.  Make sense?