The "Step Over" or "Hesi Dribble" Tax Pillar - Creator's Corner Newsletter #19

Hey Reader!

Every tax strategy you have ever heard of fits into one of five key pillars. The first one, and the one most people begin with, is deducting.

Deducting is that bread and butter move you rely on often. In sports terms, it is the step over or the hesitation dribble. It gets used a lot, especially early in your business journey. When you buy a laptop, a camera, course, software, or travel for work, you want to write it off. And you can, if it meets the criteria of an eligible expense for your creator business.

But here is what most people miss. Deducting is not free money. It is not automatic. You need to show that the expense is directly connected to your income, and you need to keep proper records. No receipts digital proof (c'mon, it's 2025) means no deduction.

There is a limit to how effective deducting can be. High income earners taxed at 30% would save 30K from a 100K write-off - that's a down payment (not in downtown Toronto but in Ohio for sure). If your tax rate is twenty percent and you deduct one hundred dollars, you are only saving twenty dollars. At lower income levels, that kind of saving does not move the needle much.

That is why this pillar, while important, is the least powerful on its own. If you want to seriously reduce taxes as your income grows, you need to move past deducting and tap into the remaining four pillars.

As always, remember Rony's mantra - 1) Leverage the tax code to activate tax write-offs and income-generating assets. 2) Don't spend a dollar to save a quarter.