People have been saying for ever and ever that the only two things in the universe that are unavoidable are death and taxes. Well, if you’ve been following some of the sex worker threads on Twitter and elsewhere on social media over the past several months, you’d think cam girls somehow figured a way around the taxes part.
I got more than a bit annoyed at all that ridiculously uninformed shit-talk regarding webcam modeling and how we who work in the field handle our taxes, so I decided to do a post on the subject. Prepare yourself for a tax-paying cam girl to unleash some verbal whoopass on internet know-nothings.
Self Employment Realities
Okay, so, self employment. Yes, the vast majority of active webcam models are “self-employed,” according to the government’s definition of the term. That means, basically, that we’re working for ourselves, not for some company. When we work, we only get paid if our efforts are rewarded by the market we serve — unlike employees, who can get paid regardless.
So, if I go on cam and sit there for two hours chatting with my room about Avengers, or whatever topic, but I don’t get tipped, that’s two hours of my productive life down the rat-hole of the internet. I don’t get a dime for that time invested, because I’m working for myself.
On the other hand, if I decide to logon for a quick 15-minute camming sesh before bed one night and a big spender lays down a 20,000-token megatip out of nowhere, I make a cool grand for little effort and don’t have to share it with anybody (well, except Uncle Sam, which I will get to shortly). That’s the double-edged sword of self-employment — it can be incredibly rewarding, but can also be like driving down a long dark tunnel because you have no guarantee whatsoever that your efforts, on any given day, will produce any money.
Cam Girl Taxable Income
As self-employed workers, cam girls are responsible for reporting their own income to the IRS (speaking of US models here), but much of that income is also reported by the companies we do business with. The cam sites we work on (Chaturbate, MyFreeCams, LiveJasmin, etc) are required to report income cam models make on their platforms, but that could be only a portion of our total income, because models will often have multiple revenue sources.
So, for example, a webcam model might make 80% of her income on her primary cam site, then make the other 20% on her secondary cam site. Or, she might also make money from selling videos on clip platforms, or through direct sales. Another source of income might be panty sales, or sexting, or premium Snapchat, or you name it. Most professional cam girls who’ve spent more than a few weeks in the webcam modeling business offer all or most of these things, and more.
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Not all of this income will be automatically reported to the IRS (but most will, as I explain below), so cam girls are required to add it all up at the end of the year and report it on their tax returns. This is what scores of webcam models have been doing for years and years, but now there seems to be a contingent of very low-information people out there on social media who seem to think that we’re not paying up. Let me attempt to explain what I think is behind this absurd notion, and why some nasty people are pushing it.
Why So Ignorant??
First, most people are not self-employed, they’re normal employees. That means that they usually have their tax liability automatically removed from their paychecks by their employers, then hope they get a refund the following year when they file a tax return and list deductions. That’s very different from the way it is for the self-employed, who have to report all of their various sources of income themselves, and submit estimated tax payments throughout the year. But since this isn’t the way most people do it, many of them are no doubt unaware.
So, when a cam model sells someone a pair of used panties or a custom video, and they pay her via Paypal, Google Pay, Venmo, or whichever e-wallet, these social media critics assume that’s income that she doesn’t report. I suppose many of them also think the tips cam girls make on cam sites also go unreported.
WRONNNGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!
First of all, like I mentioned above, cam sites are required to report the income models make on their sites (as long as it’s over a certain dollar amount per year, but it’s like $600, I’m pretty sure, so it’s low). So, the IRS will know what a model made on a cam site through the 1099 reporting that’s required by law. For most webcam models, that’s usually at least 70% of total income. So anyone who thinks we skate on tips is so misinformed, it literally gives me cramps.
But then, also, any income we make on clip platforms (C4S, ManyVids, IwantClips, etc) or Snapchat subscription platforms (FanPageTV) gets automatically reported too. And, guess what? That pretty much makes up the rest of our total income. Yes, it’s true that sometimes we get paid for various things through e-wallets, but we have to report that too. We list it on our returns and pay taxes on it, just like we do on the 1099 income.
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So, believe it or not, you lovely sex-work snipers, cam girls DO pay taxes, and those who are successful pay A LOT of taxes. Nobody is getting away with cheating the universe out of one of its unavoidable realities, I can assure you. Now, YOU might not understand how cam girls pay taxes, but that doesn’t mean we don’t. Maybe it’s time for you to read a fucking book, or take a class at the community college, and learn a little bit about self-employment, entrepreneurship, and tax law, because the ungodly ignorance you people are bilging out onto social media about webcam modeling is getting fairly annoying.
It’s clear that there’s a profound hatred and resentment of sex workers out there on social media, and this is just one of the many examples of how it expresses itself. Basing their arguments in complete ignorance, these rejects from the Dark Ages troll around and launch their nonsense at hard-working cam girls and other models who simply want to make a living bringing some modicum of sexual joy into the lives of people. My good Gawd, the horror!
That’s it, I’m done. Feel soooo much better. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go DO MY F#CK!$G TAXES. Ciao.
