Hey Mark and Mat,
Long time listener here, really appreciate all of the content you guys put out! Out of all the podcasts I follow, your is the only one that I listen to every single episode. I’m a real estate agent about an hour north of Atlanta and my wife has a small photography business.
We just moved to a 5 acre property/farm and are planning on building a separate home office and photography studio on the property. We already have an existing metal building that we will be using as her photography studio until we build something separate, and have started getting some farm animals as well. Some of the other improvements we’re planning on are fencing in additional pasture area, building a barn for the animals, etc. We also just purchased a $4k mower and will likely be buying some other farm equipment in the next 12-18 months.
I’m wanting to find out what the best strategy is for deducting many things as possible, whether it’s through home office related expenditures or improvements that we’ll be utilizing for the photography business. (She’ll be doing photo shoots on the farm and will be using the animals, pastures, and barns as props and scenes.)
Can we write off those improvements as expenses for the photography business, or is there a better way to structure it as some kind of farm/agricultural expense?
For context, the photography business probably only nets around $5k-10k after deducting her usual business expenses.
We also plan on using the property occasionally as an event venue, so at some point in the next 2-3 years we will likely have additional income that’s specific to the farm itself. I assume it would be best for us to have an LLC to run that business through for liability purposes?
Thanks again for everything, looking forward to hearing your thoughts!