Handling Your Music Finances from Industry Professionals

Effective tax management is essential as laws and regulations become more complicated, and we specialise in offering a bespoke service to cater to the needs of each unique customer. We also offer advice on capital allowances and capital gains tax, two efficient methods for lowering your tax burden with careful planning. That tradition continues today, as Prager Metis provides counsel to professional leaders and icons around the world.

A royalty is a payment to a company or individual with creative assets that are being used by a third-party. Music royalties come from copyright or intellectual property and the owner is paid before stockholders, company executives, etc. Greenlight Financial can help artists calculate how much royalties are due to them. We can also help small record labels when calculating the music industry accounting royalties due to their songwriters. Atlanta-based Alexis Louis (fka Alexis Kimbrough) is the founder of Growth Group, a music-focused accounting firm that works with musicians, record labels, and recording studios. A musician herself, she has served as featured panelist at the International Music Conference, Driven Music Conference and as a panelist at the Xero Roadshow.

The Dumbest Things Music Retailers Do (Double Session)

The specialist will work on the numbers as you concentrate on the core operations of thriving as a musician. Well, when it comes to “business,” cost is measured in both money and time. The time and money you save each month will make retaining a music accountant a worthwhile investment.

If you are a visual artist you should definitely be connecting with Art Right. The Art Right project seeks to provide the visual arts community of South Africa with a free resource of business, legal and educational tools, documents, information and advice. Their objective is for people who work in and around the visual arts industry to do better business, more often by raising the awareness of good business practice and issues like accounting and taxation. Their mandate is to support the entire visual arts community with a professional practice resource in art business, legal and educational activities.

Music Business Accountant

When working in the capacity of a Tour Accountant, job duties include creating an initial budget for the tour, verifying expenses, and ensuring collection of all income while on the road. Obtain professional assistance as soon as a tax investigation starts because tax audits and inspections can be challenging and frustrating. Our specialised experts frequently discover tax strategies that had previously gone unreported, resulting in significant savings.

• Music royalties come from copyright or intellectual property and the owner is paid before stockholders, company executives, etc.
• Making money and saving as much as possible is likely to be a top priority, especially when getting started as a music artist.
• In this post, we will discuss the pros and cons of having a music accountant.
• Music artists thrive when they maintain strong interactions with essential people in the music industry and their fans.
• “You’ve not only got to be detail-oriented, you’ve got to be personable and creative.
• Are the services of such a specialist an avoidable expense or a necessary investment?
• Catalano recommends that artists be extremely wary of what music accountants call a «360 deal,» or a contract that gives most of the sales revenue to their record label, even once they have stopped performing.
• Arts and entertainment accountants advise both individual artists and arts-related businesses on financial matters.
• Although accounting firms have set business hours, that doesn’t mean a Music Business Accountant’s day ends at 5 pm.

This will enable them to enlighten you about different topics that assure your success as a musician. For instance, competence in matters specific to the music industry will allow your accountant to offer specialized services when handling ledgers, trial balances, initial public offerings, and more. I’ve definitely had discussions with other business managers who don’t believe you necessarily have to file in every state. For example, states like New York and New Jersey don’t take any money out for taxes on tours at all. But you can file a budget to these people, and your rates will come down.

Job Details

We understand the complexities and challenges of the entertainment & music industries. Prager and Fenton LLP, the predecessor of Prager Metis International, has specialized in accounting and advising for the entertainment and music industry since its inception, over 100 years ago. You can also apply for turnover tax which is a simplified tax system for small businesses with a qualifying turnover of not more than R1 million per annum. It is a tax based on the taxable turnover of a business and is available to sole proprietors (individuals), partnerships, close corporations, companies and co-operatives. Turnover tax takes the place of VAT (in the instance that you have not decided to elect back into the VAT system), provisional tax, income tax, capital gains tax, secondary tax on companies (STC) and dividends tax.

If you want to flourish as a musician, a music CPA may just turn out to be a vital asset that can set you up for success. An Arts and entertainment accountant also referred to as a music accountant, is not your usual general-purpose financial advisor. Even though their work is to help you handle challenging financial tasks, invest, save and identify viable money-making opportunities, their creativity levels sets them apart. Creative professionals such as musicians are different from regular enterprises. This makes it essential to hire a music account that is well attuned to handle concerns unique to your profession. On-the-job training and experience are necessary to land a position as a Music Business Accountant.

International Tax Planning

So qualifying businesses pay a single tax instead of various other taxes. The website will host a set of standardised contractual documents, business administration tools and professional practice information which is designed specifically for the visual arts community. As the project receives funding ARTRIGHT will create educational tutorials, publish the information in a printed guide and try to maximise access of the information and advice to the visual arts community. No other entertainment industry sector has a specific tax incentive designed to help develop it in this manner. However, as music is now the focus of the Department of Arts and culture for the near future, there is a good chance that this will soon change. We recognize that cultural fit is important when searching for new opportunities.