Goofy Tax Question

mookeywrench

Say you're an actor and the director hires you for the part and then tells you that you need to put on 50 lbs to play the scenes in 6 months.

Would all your food and drink be tax deductible for the next 6 months?

dcfaithful

mookeywrench wrote:

Say you're an actor and the director hires you for the part and then tells you that you need to put on 50 lbs to play the scenes in 6 months.

Would all your food and drink be tax deductible for the next 6 months?

As if I needed another way to annoy my accountant....

mfc2006

i would imagine so.

mrvedderson

yes, these costs are for the employers benefit

Get_Right

certainly
especially if it was in the contract you could easily establish the increase in food expenses due to the requirement

I would guess the studio might even provide a nutritionist, trainer and a meal service in these circumstances

81

i have to assume you are a star for them to ask you to put on 50lbs.

thus, do you really need to worry about $100 in tax savings when you are about to be paid millions?

_

Only the crap food is deductible and it must be above & beyond the crap food you were already eating to be at your current weight.

sludawg13

mookeywrench wrote:

Say you're an actor and the director hires you for the part and then tells you that you need to put on 50 lbs to play the scenes in 6 months.

Would all your food and drink be tax deductible for the next 6 months?

All right, here comes the nerdy accountant answer.

I'm assuming you will be paid for this work, right? If you are, you'll most likely be receiving a 1099-MISC for the work you did. If this is the case, you'll have to file a Schedule C on your 1040. On the Schedule C, you have an income section and expense section. You'd put the amount on your 1099 in the income part, obviously. In the expense section, you can put in your expenses associated with this job. For example, mileage/gas expense for your driving to/from the studio/theater, any wardrobe YOU had to buy for this part, and the additional food you had to buy to bulk up for this part.

It has to be the extra food you bought.......you can't go deducting your full grocery bill for a couple months. Basically, you want to be reasonable in what you're deducting. The less red flags you raise, the better.......you don't want to go crazy and then cause yourself to be audited.

I would definitely recommend that you talk with an actual accountant though before doing your tax return. That isn't that goofy of a question. I'm sure they get asked some very odd questions!