Situation: I've left a corporate job and spent the whole last year developing apps. The goals was to give the apps for free away in the app store to get traction. Once it has traction, the goal was to sell the apps. Because apps are hit and miss, I developed a series of apps to see which one would catch on. None of the apps has made any money.
I have expenses for:
- Software subscription licensing, e.g. Adobe Cloud
- Contractors that I hired through upwork.com: Marketing, design, and writing experts.
- Advertising costs: Convention booth, Facebook ads
How do I declare those expenses and get the most tax benefit out of it?
I've read about the difference between startup costs and operation costs. Usually the dividing line is the day that the business opens for business. One interpretation is that my business efforts never opened for business because I didn't try to charge any money. (Selling successful apps would be the monetization.) Another interpretation is that as soon as I published the first app in the app store, although free, I was open for business.
Are these expenses startup costs or operational costs?
I'm fine and actually super heavy if I get pointed to a dense article. I don't need it simplified and love to really understand an issue.
