The creative freelancer’s financial life is an unstable one: Even the successful ones often don’t know when or from where their next paycheck is coming as they cobble together a series of commissions, show sales, grants, performances, residencies, adjunct teaching positions, DJ sets, fellowships, Substack subscriptions, prizes, articles, speaker’s fees, and any other short-term gigs that make up an income stream. And anyone that’s been a freelancer also knows, come April 15, you get taxed to the high heavens. One of the perks of being a freelancer however is that nifty little trick known as the tax write-off. Bought a fancy new kiln to fire your pieces? Write it off. Took an Uber to your gallery opening? Write it off. Bought some new Issey Miyake trousers to review on your fashion newsletter? Sure, why not. If you can make the even halfway credible case that it was a work expense, you can write it off your taxes.
So even though rates might be low and studio rent might be high, the savvy freelance artist can, and will, write off just about any item from a cup of coffee to a plane ticket to Paris for Fashion Week (that is, if someone else isn’t footing the bill.) There’s the ordinary and expected like art materials and office supplies, but you can always go deeper. If you work from home, does your Internet bill count? If I review TV shows for a living, can I write off my HBO Max subscription? Then there’s the middle tier charges: classes, workshops, conferences, elaborate dinners and parties, memberships, you name it. And there’s always whispers of those who managed even bigger ticket write offs.
We checked in with a few of our favorite freelance artists, writers, DJs, and more to find out about the wildest items they’ve written off come tax day.
Michelle Tea, writer
“I once wrote off cat food because I was including my cat in my memoir.”
Luisa Opalesky, photographer
“Oh my goodness… it was the Louis Vuitton Limited Edition Monogram Rayures Noe bag at Miami twice while on an in-between day on a Brad Pitt Roadtrip. I wrote it off as a camera bag.”
Alaska Riley, writer and social media editor
“I don’t pay federal taxes to commit war crimes <3 Can’t remember the last time I did!”
Josh Kline, artist
“My receipts for art supplies have always been a little unhinged. There were the Sprinter vans my studio manager Eliza and I would rent before the pandemic to go ‘forage’ for Home Depot shopping carts for sculptures. Those were written off as ‘transportation.’ But maybe the wildest receipts were for Skittles, 2014, the refrigerators full of toxic juices and smoothies I made about New York’s class problems. When it went to MoMA, I had to buy vast quantities of NyQuil, DayQuil, Mr. Clean, Axe body wash, flavored vodka, tennis balls, Rogaine, Viagra, Adderall, Wall Street Journal, and all the other ‘ingredients.’ It took a while to wrangle the pile of receipts on the other side for the accountant.”
Boy Harsher (Jae Matthew and Gus Muller), musicians
“A couple years ago we bought a 1994 turquoise Chevy Cheyenne. Amazing vehicle. It was the hero car in our film The Runner. I imagine that was our craziest dedication.”
Ben Levi Ross, actor and musician
“When I was 20 I was on tour around the country with a musical and coincidentally the tour landed in Las Vegas on my 21st birthday. I decided to go all out and stay at the Four Seasons for the week as a birthday present. They upgraded me to the presidential suite because I said I was turning 21 and I’m pretty sure that stay ended up being a work expense because it was a part of my… work?”
Liz Goldwyn, founder of The Sex Ed
“I definitely had some interesting business expenses that were write-offs, including expensive vibrators from Lelo for my team to test drive and cannabis suppositories for menstrual cramps. We never endorsed a product that we wouldn’t actually buy ourselves, so there were a lot of peer-reviewed write-offs. I’m very upset in 2026 to be paying taxes to the current administration and wish we all could refrain in protest!”
Gaz Herbert, private chef
“I once had a client who didn’t like the sausages I flew with us from London to Cancún, so he had me fly someone down with sausages that day from New York. I had to expense the flights and travel (and sausages) and put them on my tax return!”
Sophie Becker, ventriloquist
“Fancy children’s clothes for Ronnie [my dummy].”
Gabrielle Scelzo, baker
“I’m a baker, so a lot of what I write off is ingredients. I always feel pretty silly that my work expenses are different kinds of sugar and dairy. This year, I handed my accountants receipts for over $2,500 of salted butter.”
sevyn 0000, DJ
“To be honest, I always felt more conflicted about the system itself than interested in finding ways to operate within it. I think more creatives should be doing that, especially when it comes to paying federal taxes to commit war crimes.”
Aimee France, chef
“When I was at the height of my cake business, I bought a mini fridge solely to store butter. To this day, I still call it my bachelorette butter fridge business expense.”
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