Friends, if you had been to my house lately, you would have noticed that my dining room table looks like this:

Yup, piles and piles of receipts I’m sorting through and entering into Excel spreadsheets in preparation for doing my taxes.

For those of you who live here in Canada, you have until midnight, Monday, May 2, 2016 to file your Income Taxes. And if you’re a blogger, you may be able to take advantage of tax deductions in the form of write-offs for your blog.

One misconception about taxes that a lot of people have, is that they believe they can’t take tax deductions if their blog doesn’t make any money. This just isn’t true. The government understands that it takes a while to make a business profitable, so if you are in your first couple of years of blogging, and you’re not really making any money at it yet, don’t despair. You can still write off your expenses for a few years before the government will start asking you funny questions. As long as you’re working towards monetization, that’s the important part. You’ll want to show that you are slowly beginning to make profits as the years go by.

One of the advantages of having a blog that’s more than just a hobby is that you can start to write off anything associated with the cost of doing business. So, if there’s something you absolutely need to make your blog run, then it is a justifiable expense, and a justifiable tax write off.

Some examples:

• Domain name purchase
• Web hosting
• WordPress themes
• Web/Graphic Designer or someone who is helping you to set up your site
• Blog coaches
• Internet expenses
• Business card printing
• Advertising (ie Google PPC or FB boosted posts)
• Computers and computer gear
• Home office expenses

You can also write off things that are directly related to your blog. For example, I can write off meals that I write about on my blog, or new kitchen tools I’m reviewing.

If you traveled to another province or down to the US to attend a blogging conference, all of the associated costs are tax deductions: airfare/gas, hotel and meals, as well as the cost of attending the conference.

This Infographic, even though it’s American, has some great ideas for Tax Deductions for Bloggers:

In addition, read this comprehensive article on tax deductions for bloggers from Food Bloggers of Canada, and read my most recent guest post on the Sage Advice blog.