Dear Creatives, 

Happy Friday! In today’s short yet sweet letter, my main aim is to remind you to file your taxes. And try not to pull your hair out as you shuffle through the process. 

“The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.” 

– Albert Einstein.

Yes. Even the brilliant, Nobel prize winning physicist, could “relate” to the bewilderment and overwhelm many of us creatives feel about the whole income tax system. But I won’t get all political here. I won’t change the fact that April 15, 2025, is closer than it was last month. And even if you are filing an extension, any money due to the government (which sounds absurd to me) is still due on that date. 

I used to believe it was cool to owe money because, as a young adult, it meant I was earning a lot of money. I had obviously drunk too much government propaganda in those days. I quickly learned that there was no such thing as “a lot of money” when you had to pay “a lot of taxes.” To this day, I thank God for financial planners and knowledgeable accountants who taught me what I did not know.

Perhaps the only thing worse than not having enough money to pay your taxes is not making enough money to survive as a creative. Either scenario becomes glaringly clear as you prepare your taxes. I hope neither applies to you. 

These are challenging times–tax seasons. It is what it is. Whether we are building wealth, staying afloat, or sinking, taxes are unavoidable. 

They remind us that we don’t get to play all day. At some point, we must stop and do the mundane things in life because paying bills and responding to business emails keep the lights on and keep the children fed (all over the world)–we creatives are charitable. We have huge hearts and strive to do and see good in the world. Don’t we? 

But it’s hard to do all our good deeds if we have to pay Uncle Sam extra money because we didn’t file our taxes on time. So, file income taxes and sales taxes (if you have them) on time. And let’s use this experience to still be creative! 

Let’s use this moment as motivation to write a new song, finish a story, complete an invention, and thereby release any angst surrounding the “t” word. Here are some blockbuster examples to consider:

The Blues Brothers (1980) is a film about raising money to pay back taxes to save the orphanage where they were raised. 

Happy Gilmore (1996) is a film about winning enough money in a golf tournament to pay off grandma’s property taxes and save her home.

Stranger than Fiction (2006) is a film that portrays an IRS auditor as human. 

The Untouchables (1987) is a film that depicts how the government uses taxes to catch criminals. (Still doesn’t make me like taxes).

Although not a riveting letter, I hope something here makes you smile. 🙂 Yours in work, wealth, and happiness. Really,

Leah