The Business Of Music

With the recent consolidation of major record labels and the resulting cuts to their band rosters, more and more bands and musicians are creating their own record labels and distribution networks. And with the technological tools now at your disposal such as CD burners, e-commerce, and MP-3, you have the ability to act like your own record label more than ever before.

This new role, however, brings with it new responsibilities. At a minimum, you must file an annual Federal income tax return (and pay the tax) using numbers from a reasonably accurate set of books.

That's where we can help you. We can take over the process wherever you need us to. Based on your level of business experience (none or a lot), we can help you decide where you leave off and where we pick up. Many of our clients, under our guidance, keep up with their bank account and books during the year using popular accounting software such as "QuickBooks". We simply have them send us the year-end copy on disk or e-mail the file to us, make adjustments to the file, and prepare the tax return from the adjusted file.

Other clients simply total up their income and expenses for the year (with some advice from us), and we use those numbers to prepare their return. We are always on the lookout for expenses that may have been missed - as well as those that look questionable. We have had many years of experience dealing with the various types of income and expense that music professionals incur and have a good feel for which ones should be reported and how they should be reported on your tax return.