Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, Spotify, Calm, HeadSpace, NY Times etc.

Nowadays there is a subscription for everything from music, and movies, to meals and clothes on demand for a small monthly fee. Those fees might be very insignificant at first but if you have a lot of them, they can quickly add up and you could be wondering "can I write them off my taxes"?

The answer is not that simple, as required by The IRS all of the business expenses have to be "ordinary and necessary" to your business or to running your business.

My husband is an IT entrepreneur and loves streaming movies (Netflix, Hulu, AppleTV etc) for background noise while he works on his projects. Can he deduct it as business expenses? - Unfortunately, he can not (he was so upset about it, you have no idea) because streaming movies is not ordinary or necessary for his business (he can totally do his IT work in silence and I would prefer it)

While Netflix is out of the question for my hubby, a business owner is a movie industry or videographer or script writer, or actor scouter who actually needs to pay attention to new releases, movie ratings, reviews, etc can totally deduct it as an ordinary and necessary business expense.

The same applies for YouTube, one of our clients is a YouTuber, and part of her job is to do research on competitors in her niche on YouTube and challenge them. In this case, a YouTube subscription is ordinary and necessary for her business.

We have a traveling massage therapist who uses Spotify for playing relaxing music during sessions. Healing sounds are part of her services, thereof ordinary and necessary and tax deductible.

Another example, one of our clients is a mental coach and a physiotherapist, he uses Calm and Headspace apps to start sessions with his clients and get into a meditation mood. He uses it regularly and strictly for his clients, so those monthly fees can be deducted on his business tax return as ordinary and necessary.

Let's cover some newspapers, and magazines like NY Times, Bloomberg, and Forbes.
Unless you are like Richard Gere from Pretty Woman doing business associated with doing investments, providing financial advice, investment coaching, banking, or your business is highly volatile to stock market changes and what's happening in the world, (like daily Crypto trading) those type of subscriptions are purely personal.

I know it might be not what you wanted to hear but if the IRS audits your return, you must be able to prove that the subscriptions meet ordinary and necessary requirements.

I hope you already subscribed to our fully tax-deductible newsletters since you are reading this article 😜