TikTok made me deduct it
Planet Money
NPR
4.6 • 29.8K Ratings
🗓️ 12 April 2024
⏱️ 24 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
There are videos about running a business, having a side hustle, generating passive income. And also, there are a lot of tips and tricks, many of them questionable, about saving on your taxes.
On this show, we run some of the greatest hits of TikTok tax advice by some bonafide tax experts. We'll talk about whether you can use gambling losses to reduce your tax bill, whether your pets qualify you for tax deductions – and we'll fact check the claim that all rich people own expensive Mercedes G-Wagons... for tax purposes.
Along the way, we'll drill down on the concepts like taxable income and the standard deduction. And we'll ask why so many videos on TikTok suggest that you (fraudulently) categorize personal expenses as business expenses. Sometimes with a literal wink and a nod.
This episode was hosted by Nick Fountain. It was produced by Emma Peaslee with help from Willa Rubin, who also fact-checked this episode. It was edited by Molly Messick and engineered by Cena Loffredo. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's Executive Producer.
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Transcript
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| 0:31.0 | Victoria Lee is a lawyer in Los Angeles in a pretty fancy area, Beverly Hills. And if you've got an appointment with Victoria, chances are you got a problem. |
| 0:35.4 | I've been practicing tax controversy and a little bit of tax resolution for about 10 years. |
| 0:41.2 | And that's sort of like a term of art, right? |
| 0:43.7 | What is a tax controversy? |
| 0:45.6 | So tax controversy is when there is a dispute |
| 0:48.0 | as to the underlying tax. |
| 0:49.9 | In other words, you've been filing your taxes, or not in some cases, and the tax authorities |
| 0:54.4 | are not buying what you're selling. |
| 0:56.5 | If people walk through your door, they are already probably in trouble with the IRS. |
| 1:01.7 | They are being audited. And when you sit down, the first thing with the |
| 1:03.7 | I. Yes. |
| 1:01.7 | They are being audited. Yes. And when you sit down the first thing she's gonna ask is |
| 1:05.8 | what's the issue and working where she does? People come in with some kind of |
| 1:10.9 | wild problems. I've seen people try to deduct their bentlies, jets, rose-roises. |
| 1:17.6 | Lots of people with normal problems come to her too. But no matter who you are, she not to judge you want them to one not feel stupid for the choices that they've made |
| 1:29.0 | Yeah, but but also to feel comfortable that you have their best interests at heart. |
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