Musicians and Tax

As a musician most of the income generated is pre-tax whether its cash in hand gigs or royalty payments for the music that has been made during that financial year, as a result the inland revenue office will ask for 20% of the pre-tax income if it is more than approximately £11,500. However there are ways to avoid this tax payment in a legal way, if you do not live in the same country of which the income is generated for more than 90 days it makes you illegible for tax on the income, also it is possible to claim for "business expenses" which will be any expenses that directly support the music that you are creating, keeping the receipts of food and drinks at gigs, travel costs, maintenance and instrument costs, living expenses (especially if recording/producing at home) ect, will allow you to claim non-taxable costs which are agreed between you and the tax office in the form of a percentage of what you have earned. (eg. you earned £20,000 in the year from music, £4,000 of that would usually be taken by tax, however if you agreed with the tax office that 50% of the £4,000 was used to support your music only £2,000 of your income would be taxable)