Can I write that off? It depends. Here's on what.

Here’s the plot twist that catches every performer: in 2018, the federal government stopped letting employees write off work expenses. Since your union checks make you an employee, your commissions, classes, and headshots stopped counting against those wages — completely. Meanwhile, the same exact costs still deduct IN FULL against any self-employment income: your non-union gigs, coaching, content, print work.

This is exactly why generic freelancer tax advice keeps lying to you — it’s written for people whose income is all 1099, and yours isn’t. So the table below answers both columns for every line. And keep two backdoors in mind: several states (hi, California and New York) still allow the old write-offs on your STATE return, and a loan-out company brings them back federally by making them a business’s expenses.

Track everything anyway — even the stuff that doesn’t count federally right now. Why? Three reasons: it might count on your state return, it starts counting the moment you earn any 1099 money, and it’s the paper trail a future loan-out (or a finally-passed Parity Act) would feed on. WorkMade sorts your spending into the right pile automatically — which is the whole point of an accountant that actually knows what you do for a living.