I've started composing music last year but I have not made any money out of it even though I made investments on it. How do I file my expenses?

[usersoner2]

I don't have any income document (like 1099-NEC or MISC), because I did not sell any service yet. I started making software and hardware investments on it though. How do I file those expenses?

[KathrynG3]

Use the section under Wages & Income entitled Self-employment income & expenses. Only enter expenses for the year and if your intent was to open. Typically, the costs to become operational are organizational costs in the year the business begins. 

You can deduct up to $5,000 for these start-up costs, such as registering the business with the state, legal fees or equipment, to launch your business. Any other related start-up costs that exceed $5,000 is treated differently.

For additional information, see: Am I considered self-employed?

[usersoner2]

Thanks for the reply but I want to know where should I add my expenses to. I have 3 different lines of work, I tried to add a new line of work for music composition but Turbotax UI is asking me to add some "income" for that line of work. I do not have any 1099-NEC or anything because I did not make any money out of this. Should I just add those expenses to other work of lines of mine? For example, I have one for Software development, is it okay for me to add those expenses as MISC expenses for it?

[KathrynG3]

No, it would be best to keep them separated.

You could enter something like 49 cents, which will round down to zero. I tested this and it did work.