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When Do I Start Calling Writing a Hobby?
A majority of us are just amateurs, hobbyists, who are simply trying to get our voices heard
A few years ago, my husband and I were filing our taxes when something unexpected happened. We had been going to the same woman who had been doing our taxes for the past few years — as well as a few family members’ — so, we were already pretty familiar with the process.
We had sent her our all of our W2s, our taxable donation receipts, student loan tax statements, 401K documents, and everything else that was needed for filing, however, upon submitting some of my husband’s documents, she came back with one minor suggestion.
She said that we didn’t need to submit his earnings for his music gigs — gigs that were once a steady stream of income in the past — because financially, the amount of income he made that previous year now considered his music-playing to be a “hobby”. Needless to say, it was a bit of a blow to the ego.
For context, before we first started dating in 2016, his dotted line profession was musician, as a trained classical and jazz bassist. His main source of income came from playing (and making) music which varied from playing in various orchestras, accompanying musicians and vocalists at recurring gigs, and being a staple musical…
