Does anyone know where I could find resources pertaining to taxes regarding to royalties income?

[prisonerzer0]

I haven't found a better place to ask this. Tried googling for more information, but most of the google results were just about how Nelly was trying to use spotify to solve his tax evasion problem. I'm trying to find a little more about this so that I can structure my new music project in the best way possible before putting music on streaming services. 

I am located in the US and so my questioning is primiarily concerned with US taxes, but it may be applicable to some extend for other locations. 

In the most basic example, royalties are paid and then I would report on a 1099. But if I had a five memeber band and depending on the legal structure that was established for that band as well as where that legal structure was established seems like it could get very complicated very quickly. Add to that streaming services are headquartered all over the world, servers are located in several places, and end users machines are located everywhere (and constantly moving) it seems like it could quickly become a nightmare for state and federal taxes. 

Am I missing something here and it's not that complicated at all? Maybe tax code just hasn't gotten around to overcomplicating these issues yet? 

[JulianA_Bogota]

Hey @prisonerzer0! Thanks for writing.

That's a great question, indeed. However, do keep in mind that royalties paid to musicians that are generated from plays made in their Spotify artist pages (or any other streaming service) are managed by each artist's aggregator. In this case, our best suggestion would be to direct your research to that area. You can find general info on the major aggregators straight from their websites. Some of them are: CD Baby, TuneCore, Record Union, and AWAL.

Hope this helps. Have an amazing day 🙂