Pay to Play and now tax on merchandise

Seems to me the bar just wants to use the bands as a "tax patsy" and shuffle their taxes onto the 100's of bands they hire. That actually makes more sense to me. geeez its too complicated for such low level income (not to mention time/labor/cash invested)

Another odd detail is after 6yrs they just now started this W-9 request from all the bands. Maybe its new management? who knows.

in·come
ˈinˌkəm/Submit
noun
money received, especially on a regular basis, for work or through investments.


Definition doesnt really split out profit or loss.....IRS likes "report any income" usually.

Play for Food....
 
We once had a Musicians union to sort these thing out, but the Muso's refused to join as it was going to cost them money, then the Musicians union went out of business and now look what happens.

An example of the Musicians union at work, Played a hotel with a verbally agreed fee, at the end of the night the dick of a manager says, "You guys are not worth the money" even though we had a 3/4 full room and good response. So he would not pay us. Next day I ring the union, the musicians union phoned the transport workers union and tell them about us not being paid. Transport workers union black ban all deliveries to the hotel. 3 days later we are paid and get an apology from the hotel management, plus more gigs. It worked out that this hotel manager had been getting free bands for weeks until I brought it to the attention of the union.

Alan.
 
it may not be a lot of $$ to the band but if the bar/club has many bands playing over the years and pay them all cash with no documentation, their tax return is showing a shit load of Misc. cash payouts with no documentation..as a business, you DO NOT want that..register the band as a DBA and give the bar/club their tax form...
 
You know what, if all the bands did not act so desperate and all the bands said the deal is crap and we are not playing there, the club would have no bands and would have to rethink. However good luck with that, bands want fame and publicity and will sell their souls.

Maybe it's our age but my band(s) do not play unless there is pay, (unless it's a charity fundraiser then we do those) we play for fun but we don't need to do the pay to play gigs.

If you register your band as a business, keep records, invoice for services and merch, records for expenses, you may have a situation where if band members have a day job they can claim tax deductions for the band as they are business partners.

Alan.
 
Its my sons world now and I was just thinking the bars pay 4-6 bands a night, so the payout is larger for the house. the bands split it and each play 45 minutes or something. Maybe the Touring act does a bit longer and gets more.

But the W-9 thing, seems no one has done it yet because no one knows what its about. No one is going to give up merchandise money thats the bands last income really. They make more on merchandise than the gigs usually.
 
Its my sons world now and I was just thinking the bars pay 4-6 bands a night, so the payout is larger for the house. the bands split it and each play 45 minutes or something. Maybe the Touring act does a bit longer and gets more.

But the W-9 thing, seems no one has done it yet because no one knows what its about. No one is going to give up merchandise money thats the bands last income really. They make more on merchandise than the gigs usually.

Never give up merch money. They want to 1099 the band. However, Its common curtsey to inform them in the performance contract. Legally, they don't need the 1099 for the IRS unless they have collected $600 or more from that venue in the calendar year.

Did the venue pay the band by check or cash? Did the band give them a receipt?

Technically, (even though the IRS frowns upon this) if the band did not get paid by check, or the band did not issue a cash receipt when they got paid cash. They are not liable. Because there is no true records and entries in accounting programs like quickbooks don't count because there is supposed to be physical invoices, receipts, and contracts. And when they get audited, that is what they go by, and not the entries that may or may not be correct in quickbooks.
 
Theres no contract. Theres no receipts. Not around here....

theres hardly any pay...last gig was like $40 for the band from the bar owner. pretty small.

the Merch table did well $100+.(profit of merch?) but if the bars start wanting merch money too, its like a bust of greed of the bar owners. it seems? maybe its greed of the IRS?


add: talking to a coworker whose wife was a pianist on the city symphony trained classical and she was not paid and this merged into choirs he said were not paid. most all are voluntary, aka FREE...No Pay??? He was saying the conductors usually get paid.
Another coworkers kid went to theatre college and theres no jobs in theatre around for her, and they found most in the Dallas Theatre are volunteers/hobby. So not sure how that all works?

anyway added that the bands doing bar gigs might be in familiar company of no pay to miniscule pay.

hail hail rock n roll
 
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