BUSINESS MANAGEMENT · ENTERTAINMENT

Business management for the entertainment industry — from loan-outs to residuals.

For talent, musicians, showrunners, producers, and the creatives around them. Loan-out corporations. Multi-state residuals. Tour advances. Production entities. One CPA firm handling all of it.

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What we do

Entertainment income is not normal income. A working actor might have W-2 wages from a studio, guaranteed payments from a loan-out corporation, SAG-AFTRA residuals dribbling in from twelve different distributors, points on a back-end participation, and a merchandising deal running through an LLC. A touring musician might have advances from a label, per-show settlement statements, merchandise revenue net of venue commissions, publisher-collected royalties, and endorsement contracts. A showrunner might have profit participation, overall deal payments, and options on future productions.

We handle all of it. Bill pay, cash flow, entity management (loan-out, LLCs, foundations), monthly close, payroll (household and production), tax preparation, and coordination with agents, managers, entertainment attorneys, and wealth advisors. One monthly price. No hourly CPA fees. Named partners on every engagement.

Entertainment tax is its own discipline: multi-state allocation for tour revenue, jock-tax adjacent rules for performance income earned on the road, IRC §1231 analysis for production-company assets, loan-out S-corp reasonable compensation analysis, per-diem substantiation, and the difference between an expense that survives a §274 deduction test and one that does not. We do the work.

Who this is for

Actors with SAG-AFTRA residuals, loan-out corporations, and multi-project W-2 wages.
Musicians with tour income, publishing royalties, and merch revenue.
Directors, showrunners, and producers with production entities and back-end participation.
Models, athletes-turned-endorsers, and creative principals with endorsement and licensing income.
Agents, managers, and entertainment attorneys who want a CPA firm they can hand a new client to.

Deliverables

Loan-out corporation management — books, monthly close, reasonable compensation analysis, S-corp filings.
Multi-state tax preparation — residuals allocated correctly across states where work was performed.
Residual tracking and reconciliation — statements from SAG-AFTRA, WGA, DGA, AFM, publishers, and distributors matched against the deal terms.
Tour financials — per-show settlement statements reconciled, per diem substantiated, merch revenue tracked net of venue commissions.
Production company accounting — LLC or S-corp books, back-end participation tracking, distributions to owners on a §707 or §1361 basis.
Bill pay and cash management through Bill.com and QBO, with signatory privileges optional.

Frequently asked

Q: What is a loan-out corporation and why do entertainment clients use one?

A: A loan-out is an S-corporation (or occasionally an LLC taxed as S-corp) that the talent owns, and that "loans out" the talent's services to producers, studios, or promoters. It permits the talent to deduct legitimate business expenses against gross income, to take a portion of income as distribution (not subject to self-employment tax), and to fund a retirement plan against the corporation's earnings. Reasonable compensation must be paid as W-2 wages — this is where analysis matters.

Q: How do you handle multi-state tax for touring musicians and traveling actors?

A: Income earned in each state is allocated to that state under its own sourcing rules. Some states (New York, Illinois, Massachusetts) are aggressive on personal-service allocation; others (Texas, Florida, Washington) have no personal income tax. We prepare all required nonresident state returns and coordinate credits against the resident-state California return. See our /tax-planning-entertainment-industry page for the tax-planning angle.

Q: Do you handle residuals from SAG-AFTRA, WGA, and DGA?

A: Yes. Guild residuals — pension and health contributions, base residuals, and reuse-basis residuals — are tracked, reconciled to guild statements, and recognized for tax in the correct year. Late residuals are a normal reality; we track receivables against expected payments.

Q: Can you work directly with our agent, manager, and attorney?

A: Yes — that is how the engagement typically runs. Weekly or monthly touchpoints with reps on the client's schedule, plus real-time coordination on deal points that affect the financial picture (loan-out structure, per-diem language, backend participation calculations).

Q: How is per diem handled on tour?

A: Under IRS revenue procedures and the federal per-diem tables, per-diem paid to talent for travel days is potentially excludable from income if it does not exceed federal rates and the days are substantiated. Where a road manager collects receipts and days, we can substantiate excess per-diem for meals; for anything above the tables, the excess is wages.

Q: What is your fee structure for entertainment clients?

A: Flat monthly fee covering all recurring business management. Loan-out returns, personal returns, and multi-state filings are included in the monthly. Extraordinary work — M&A on a production catalog, financing of a tour, or IRS examination support — is quoted separately.

Loan-outs. Residuals. Tour receipts. One CPA firm handling all of it.

Business management for the entertainment industry. Named partners. U.S.-based staff. One monthly price. Thirty-minute consultation with a CPA.