Are you a professional musician and your employment contract required you to buy a musical instrument or cover the maintenance, rental costs, and/or insurance payments of an instrument you already own? Since these are all considered work-related expenses, you might be able to claim a deduction using form TP-78.4-V.
It’s important to remember that the expenses you’re claiming cannot be more than the income you earned as a salaried musician in a given year (less any other deductions you’re making that are related to this income). It’s also worth mentioning that personal expenses, like the ones listed below, can’t be claimed against this income:
- The cost of sheet music, scores, scripts, transcriptions, photographs, arrangements, and other recordings
- Videotaping and recording costs which are only meant to help yourself study and improve
Keep in mind, if you want to claim a deduction for work-related expenses other than those related to your musical instrument, you’ll need to complete the TP-59-V and TP-64.3-V forms. As mentioned above, these forms are combined with the TP-78.4-V in H&R Block’s tax software.
Note: You won’t be able to claim a deduction for your musical instrument if you’re claiming the same expenses as a self-employed musician.
Where do I claim this?
Follow these steps in H&R Block’s tax software to file your 2016 taxes:
Before you begin, make sure you told us that you lived in QUÉBEC on December 31, 2016.
- On the PREPARE tab, click the LET’S TALK ABOUT 2016 icon.
- Select the checkbox labelled I was employed.
- Click the EMPLOYMENT icon. You’ll find yourself here:
- Under the EXPENSES heading, select the checkbox labelled Employment expenses, then click Continue.
- When you arrive at the Employment expenses page, answer Yes to the question Were you employed as a professional musician?.
- Select Salaried Musician from the Go To Page dropdown menu.
- Enter your information into the tax software.
