12 Tax Write-Offs UGC Creators Forget (And What They're Costing You)
Most UGC creators know the obvious ones — camera, ring light, done. The IRS list is a lot longer than that.
TallyFox Team
September 8, 2026 • 4 min read
Every write-off you forget is money you've already earned, just handed straight back to the IRS.
Most UGC creators know the obvious ones — camera, ring light, done. But the IRS lets you deduct anything "ordinary and necessary" for running your content business, and that list is a lot longer than most creators realize.
So what are tax write-offs for UGC creators? Here are the twelve that get forgotten most often.
Home Office Space
If you have a dedicated area where you film, edit, or manage your business, you can deduct it two ways: the simplified method ($5 per square foot, capped at $1,500) or the actual expense method, which requires more tracking but often yields a bigger deduction.
Editing Software and Subscriptions
Adobe, CapCut, Canva, Sprout Social, stock photo or music licenses — any tool you pay for to produce content is deductible.
Equipment
Cameras, tripods, microphones, lighting kits, external hard drives. If it's used for content, it counts, even if you already had a version of it for personal use — you just deduct the business-use portion.
Wardrobe and Props (With a Catch)
Clothing only qualifies if it's not something you'd wear in everyday life — think costume pieces or branded shoot-specific looks, not your go-to jeans.
Mileage and Travel
Driving to a shoot location, flying to a brand event, hotel stays for business trips. These are all deductible, as long as the primary purpose is business.
Contract Labor and Short-Term Hires
Pay an editor, a photographer, or an assistant for a project? That's deductible. Just know that paying any one person $2,000 or more in a year means you're responsible for sending them a 1099-NEC.
Business Supplies and Backdrops
Props, staging materials, printer paper, packaging for unboxing content — the small stuff adds up.
Platform and Processing Fees
Fees TikTok, YouTube, or a UGC marketplace take off the top, plus payment processing fees from PayPal or Stripe, reduce your taxable income.
Marketing and Promotion
Paid ads to grow your following, a website, business cards for brand events — all fair game.
Portion of Phone and Internet
If you use your phone and home internet for both content work and personal life, you can deduct the business-use percentage of each.
Business Insurance and Legal or Accounting Fees
Liability insurance, contract review with a lawyer, and yes, the cost of tax software or working with an accountant are all deductible business expenses.
Half of Your Self-Employment Tax
You pay the full 15.3% self-employment tax as a creator, covering both the "employee" and "employer" share of Social Security and Medicare. The good news: you're allowed to deduct exactly half of that amount from your taxable income.
Found Money Isn't the Finish Line
Finding these deductions is the whole game — Your Rich BFF's Vivian Tu has made the point on TikTok more than once: overlooking a credit or write-off you actually qualify for is money left on the table, plain and simple. But what you do with what you save matters just as much as finding it.
Once your tax obligation is covered, that recovered money has two good homes: a high-yield savings account, so it isn't sitting idle in checking earning nothing, or straight back into your business — better gear, a course, a tool that helps you land higher-paying deals. Diary of a CEO's Steven Bartlett has said it plainly in interviews about building his own companies: the businesses that last are the ones reinvesting in what actually moves them forward, not just banking short-term profit and standing still.
The Deduction Problem Isn't Knowing They Exist — It's Remembering Them
Twelve deductions is a lot to track manually across a year of brand deals, gifted products, and one-off gigs. That's the exact gap TallyFox is built for: instead of trying to remember every category every time you spend, TallyFox scans your expenses and surfaces the creator-specific deductions you'd otherwise miss, so "found money" isn't something you catch by accident.
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