Tax Planning for Artists

 

 

YEAR-END TAX PLANNING FOR ARTISTS

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

7:00 - 8:30 P.M.

With Lionel Sobel, Esq.

 

As an artist, there are several steps you can take before New Year's Eve 2010 to reduce your 2010 taxes, such as opening an IRA or contributing to an existing IRA, paying property taxes early, making mortgage loan payments, making charitable contributions before year-end, and prepaying office rent and other self-employment expenses. However, year-end tax-planning poses more difficultly this year than in the past, because 2011 tax rates are as yet undetermined. This workshop will explain how taking certain steps before New Year's Eve 2010 may reduce your 2010 taxes if rates remain the same, but may increase your taxes if rates increase. This workshop will also inform you of the documents you should hold onto and keep track of to prepare your tax returns in the spring of 2011 (in case IRS auditors want to chat about those returns, sometime down the line).

 

SPEAKER: Lionel Sobel teaches tax, copyright and entertainment law at Southwestern Law School and is known for his "open and energetic" teaching style. He served as Chair of the American Bar Association Forum Committee on the Entertainment & Sports Industries, and is the author of major texts on the law and business of the entertainment and sports industries. In 1975, after working as a litigation associate for Loeb & Loeb, Professor Sobel formed his own firm, Freedman & Sobel, where he focused his practice primarily on business counseling and litigation, and copyright and trademark law. He has also taught international entertainment law and international copyright law in theUniversity of San Diego Law School summer program in London and Florence. Originally a member of the advisory board for Southwestern's Donald E. Biederman Entertainment and Media Law Institute, Professor Sobel directed the law school'sinternational entertainment law summer program in England from 2004 through 2008. Since January 2005, he has been a member of the full-time faculty.

 

WHERE: Ken Edwards Center, 1527 Fourth Street, Santa Monica, CA 90401

 Free parking is available after 6 P.M. in the garage at the Ken Edwards Center

 

ADMISSION: General: $20, CLA & Alliance of Women Filmmakers Members: $10

*All paid workshop attendees will be entered into a drawing to win the latest (2009) edition of Mark Litwak, Esq.'s widely referenced book, RISKY BUSINESS: FINANCING AND DISTRIBUTING INDEPENDENT FILMS, a comprehensive nuts-and-bolts guide to organizing, financing, and distributing an independent production project! The prize drawing will take place at the end of the workshop and the winner must be present to win.* 

 

REGISTER: Phone: (310) 998-5590, Email: jennie.park@calawyersforthearts.org (If emailing, include your phone number & workshop date(s)).

 

These workshops were made possible, in part, by support provided by the California Arts Council, the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, and the California Community Foundation.