# tax question



## Kalne (Oct 25, 2007)

I think I may have asked this last year. LOL How do you claim the expense of your goat milk used for soap making? Or do you not?


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## kidsngarden (Oct 28, 2007)

I claim all feed and supply receipts relating to the goats. you can even claim some power and water bills I would imagine (not to mention you use those to make soap too!) but I never do.


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## Kalne (Oct 25, 2007)

Hmmm, okay but then do you claim any income from goat sales and/or milk sales? Or the milk your family drinks? It just seems if I claim the expense of keeping goats I need to claim any benefit I get from them besides milk for my soap. I know the cost of keeping our goats exceeds any income from them so I have never reported either. 

And what if you sell things that aren't really farm related? Does it all go into one big pot? Like along with soap we sell crafts on-line and at shows. Regular crafty stuff as well as some clothing items. I know I need to find a tax guy but I'm getting my receipts together and just wondering how I should sort it all out.


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## kidsngarden (Oct 28, 2007)

I keep very few goats. Right now I have only 5 and three are does. I'm different from a lot of folks here in that I have goats to make soap. Drinking the milk and getting meat are the side benefits, not the other way around. 

I'm not legal to sell so I can't count that. There are so many things I can claim that I don't so I just claim all the feed and supplies and figure it'll all come out in the wash.

If I sold other items besides my bath and body legally I should claim them as income.


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

Get yourself a schedule F form, it should be at the post office with all the other tax papers this time of year. Instead of claming my bath and body products as a business expense and profit, I claim them as income from the goats...there is no place on the schedule F to write down if the income is from straight sales of goats or milk or meat or cheese etc...so I use the income spot, as a place to put all income from my goats. I charge Nubian Soaps the going rate of $8 a gallon to buy milk from the girls at Lonesome Doe...so in there is my 'hidden' salary for producing the milk and also my salary I get paid from Nubian Soaps. I put soap supplies under misc, my lye etc under chemicals, my shipping is not just shipping goats and goat supplies to me from Jeffers etc...it is also my shipping I pay on goat products....etc. It really isn't in the spirit of the law on how the Schedule F is supposed to work, Nubian soaps should be a business on it's own...but my tax gal said that it is no different than someone claming their cheese, or anything else they make out of the raw product that is grown on the farm. And I do make sure I run it as business which is the biggy.

I even use my Schedule F as a way of setting up my record books, so at the end of the year...yesterday, I already have all my feed under the feed column, all drugs under my vet column all the animals I purchased, sold etc..under their columns...so it takes me about 1 hour to make sure I haven't missed any soap income with checks or deposits and I am done with my end of the taxes.

IF you are going to do this strictly as self employed business, I would make sure the milk you are buying for your soap company is really being sold to you for what it is worth for the 100% of the goats care...perhaps minus any meat or milk or kid or goat sales. Vicki


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