Taraji P. Henson says she's still not being paid fairly in Hollywood

[hewontgo]

Taraji P. Henson says she's still not being paid fairly in Hollywood: "I’m just supposed to smile and grin and bear it. Enough is enough!"

"Every time I break another glass ceiling, when it’s time to renegotiate I’m at the bottom again like I never did what I just did and I’m… pic.twitter.com/4faAlm6xTP
- Zack Sharf (@ZSharf) December 20, 2023
Taraji

Comments

[scheisse]

is her accountant telling her she needs to pay 50% in taxes? this is the second time she has said that and i'm starting to think someone is scamming her lol.

[sisterruth]

So I guess she's confusing marginal versus effective tax rates, but given California's top marginal tax rate is really high, the marginal rates do combine to close to 50%. I think the effective is like 10-12% lower. But I'll admit I'm horrible with taxes.

[floatinglately]

are actors 1099 workers? because freelance taxes are a higher percentage of income marked as going towards you than w-2 taxes because you have to pay the employer portion of some federal
stuff.

i’ve been using this calculator ( https://www.keepertax.com/1099-tax-calculator ) to estimate quarterly taxes as a freelancer and when i put in a yearly income of 1 million in california it came back with 452k in taxes. at 5 million it was over 50% actually (more than 2.5 million). i assume there are breaks and stuff to be found once you sit down with an actual accountant if you’re that rich but it’s definitely a lot.

[sisterruth]

There's a way to save tax by creating an entity to sell/loan out the actor's services. Production pays the LLC the contracted amount, and the actor, as an individual, is paid an income out of the contractual payment. Unreimbursed expenses from when the actor is working on a project (because they're not always reimbursed by production) can be deducted on the LLC's tax return.

[floatinglately]

ohhhhhhhhh. ty for explaining!

[imnotasquirrel]

yeah i would be really surprised if someone with taraji's name/status/etc. had not formed a loan-out corp.

[oatmealcrispcer]

I’m more confused by if she is being told her agent/manager/attorney etc commissions and expenses aren’t reducing her tax liability. Aren’t those costs tax deductible?

Her not seeing her offers increase in line with how we see for white male actors, and used as a baseline for future offers is obviously absurd (and sexist and racist I’m sure) but especially so after such a long career with consistent upward trajectory, sustained popularity, and staring roles in financially and critically successful projects. I’m glad she spotted her team wasn’t delivering any kind of strategy or ambitions for her and fired them. It’s predictable, but still crazy to me, that even with Colour Purple she felt the starting offer was insultingly low.

[sisterruth]

I think it depends on worker classification. Assuming this link is accurate, some professional entertainers were screwed by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/deductions-actors.html

[oatmealcrispcer]

That's crazy. I wonder what share of acting jobs, and of bigger budget project lead and supporting roles (vs background and minor parts) are classed as "employee". I wonder if it's more common on recurring things like TV vs films. I assume since this act was enacted, actors try to negotiate in their contract that they be classed as ICs (unless I'm missing some major benefit to being "employee", but then also would wonder if studios/production companies don't also prefer the IC designation since then they'd be absolved of some expenses like employer paid payroll taxes, right?).

[ginainabottle]

I know I'm high but my god, this whole thread could very well be in German to me, I don't understand shit lol

[tetrazzinichikn]

Basically different parts of your salary are taxed at different amounts. Say you make $100,000. Using made up numbers and pretending there is a 50% federal tax on anyone, you’d pay your taxes like this:

$1-50k taxed at 20%
$51k-70k taxed at 25%
$71k-80k taxed at 35%
$81k-90k taxed at 40%
$91k-100k taxed at 50%

So in this scenario, only $10k is being taxed at 50%. When people are referring to your “tax bracket” they mean the highest amount you get taxed even though it is only a (usually small) percentage of what most of your salary is taxed at.

[ginainabottle]

you're an angel ❤️