How do bands and band members get paid?

[poodlesrule]

I wonder how bands, and band members, get paid.

How does income reporting work? For example, are members self-employed, contracting out?

I am not thinking so much local bands, but more about the ones that do some summer touring, where travel expenses become a factor.

[6stringdrug]

My band rarely plays out of area, however, I toured with a blugrass festival some years back and got paid by check and 1099'd at the end of the year. I was very young and didnt save any of my reciepts from that summer. I got hit hard on my taxes, I could have written off gas, hotels, campground expenses, food, strings, even the money I had spent on stickers and cd production. now, I save every reciept, even though I am not a professioinal musician anymore. If I play one gig and get 1099'd again, I can write off everything I spent the whole year!!!

[deeaa]

Well, I think I've maybe gotten properly paid on perhaps on five gigs out of a hundred...and even when I have, the pay has been so small it hasn't really been a problem in any way.

It's always either been we've been given food and beer, maybe some booze, and in some cases a place to spend the night, and that's it.

BUT when we've been paid, I've usually given them my tax info and gotten the pay personally on my taxes, i.e. as if I had been hired as a temp worker...I always make sure every year I report my yearly income at least some 3-5000 too big and just pay a little more tax off my pay, so I get nice tax returns every year...and it provides enough overhead, if I make a few hundred from a gig, it won't rack up my income tax percentage (28% currently). And then I just divide money with the rest of the guys, they get their part sort of tax free then, but we all get the same dough. Except I can't remember it much ever been enough to cover all costs anyway...I think the best gig pay we ever got was something around six hundred, which meant just 150 per head, deduct gas and such, leaves maybe a hundred, and that ain't enough to even get properly drunk in a nightclub after the gig :-)

A few times we've been playing for an 'agent' company, in which case the venue pays the agent and they pay us - if there is something to pay after all the expenses.

But, because I never made any money with my music in any way anywhere, despite well over a hundred gigs and several released EP's CD's and music videos that played in national TV and even won some video contests, I never had any tax problems with it either :-)

[deeaa]

...but I just realized you guys probably have totally different ways for pay and taxes anyway.

Here it's like every August I hear how many hours I have the next 10 months (1008 work hours this year, which is pretty high...usually I work about 20 hours a week, hate to have to do more) and based on that I know exactly what my monthly salary is every 15th of the month for the next 12 months - two months is all holiday but paid as usual; pay stays the same throughout the year except if I have some extra hours and in June I get 1,5x the money as holiday bonus.

The pay comes directly onto my banking account and having been deducted income tax, union fees, etc. etc. and therein lies a way to use the system - you just tell them, OK this year I'll make 45.000 when you're really making only 40k, and they'll tax you a few percent more - BUT then you get all the money back with interest just before xmas. So it is a very easy and good way to save money to report a little higher income than you have, AND it allows for you to do small side jobs and not worry about having to pay back taxes because you went over your estimate for the year.

It beats the hell out of doing side jobs with the official side job percentage, which would be 48% tax for me, for instance.

So this way it is easy to deal with small income up to a few thousand a year, just take it as normal salary.