I’ve recommended credit cards in the past as a simple way to manage freelancing expenses. I got the chance to interview the CPA who I send my taxes to, Travis Raml, for another article not too long ago and something he said stuck with me.

Travis explained that you can actually minimize your taxes for 2009 with a credit card: “One of the easiest ways to minimize taxes is expense acceleration. Most small business owners are on the cash basis of accounting and thus can deduct expenses when paid. So with the year’s end on the horizon, if you have expenses you know you’re going to pay in the next month or so, it’s probably sensible to make the purchase or payment now versus waiting until the next calender year.”

You can put those expenses on your business credit card now and get the tax deduction for 2009. Travis added, “…if you pay via credit card the expense is deductible in the year the purchase is made, not when you make the payment to the credit card company. This strategy can also be used billing clients as you only record the income when the cash is received. If you delay billing clients for a couple weeks towards the end of the year, it is more likely the payment will not come in until January or February at which point it would become taxable the next calender year.”

Of course, you’ll want to talk to your own tax preparer to make sure that you handle your taxes appropriately, but with just a few days until 2010, it may be worth taking a look at any expenses you’re expecting for January.

I know I’m a bit of a nerd when it comes to copyright law. I’ve taken classes on the subject, kept up with the latest news and even sent out a DMCA takedown notice of my own. I have a vested interest in making sure that my own copyrights are enforced, and I get downright twitchy when someone even thinks about infringing on something I’ve written.

You can imagine how my copyright-loving self responded when my dad called me up last night, asking me if I could help him break copyright law. Of course, he didn’t know that was what he was asking — but we both got an education. He now knows far more about copyright law than he ever wanted to and I got a crash course in just how little most people actually understand about the topic.

Dad bought a piece of stock illustration off of a website he’s used in the past. He likes slapping stock photography into whatever brochure or sales piece he’s working on at the moment, and that’s just fine with the terms of use he agrees to every time he downloads another image. But Dad found a piece that he really liked, but he wanted to change just a little bit and then place on t-shirts. Well, most stock sites forbid both changing their images or turning a profit on them.

My dad didn’t even know that he wanted to create a derivative work, let alone that licensing an image for use in a brochure doesn’t give you the legal right to slap it on a shirt and start raking in the dough. You’ll find that’s true all over: the folks that want to copy your article in its entirety on to their blogs aren’t always aware that they can’t do that. Many just like the piece and want to share it with their friends.

All of this means that it’s up to you, as a freelancer, to have a really good grasp of your rights and limitations under copyright law. You don’t just have to protect your work — you’ll probably find yourself educating well-intentioned individuals on just what they can do with your work.

I know I’ve mentioned that CCH offers a free tax guide for journalists in the past. But as tax season closes in on us, I think it’s worth bringing up again. The booklet covers a wide variety of topics, including income from prizes, copyright, libel insurance and even advice for foreign correspondents living abroad. Furthermore, if you have an older version already, it’s probably worth requesting the 2009 booklet. This year’s edition has been updated to include the wide variety of changes made to the tax laws and regulations since you last prepared your taxes.

You can get a free print copy of the guide by emailing Leslie Bonacum at mediahelp [at] cch [dot] com. Include your address in the email so that they can send a copy of the guide your way. More information is available through CCH’s website.

If you’ve formalized your business by incorporating and obtaining an EIN — which I do thoroughly recommend for most writers — it is important to remember that this information is just as sensitive as your own Social Security number. Just as someone with access to your SSN can do all sorts of damage to your credit, an identity thief who gets ahold of your EIN can cause plenty of financial damage.

The U.S. National Better Business Bureau has been working to inform small business owners (a category that freelance writers fall into) of the dangers associated with business identity theft:

Because businesses have higher credit limits and make larger purchases than consumers, charges by scammers are less likely to be noticed by owners, accountants and creditors. And whereas most consumer ID theft costs victims less than $5,000 on average, individuals and criminal networks that target businesses can easily haul more than 10 times that amount.

One identity theft scam specifically targets small businesses rather that individuals: a scammer will get a few examples of your work, solicit new clients and rip them off. Once a reputation like that has been associated with your name, you’ve got a lot of trouble.

Treat your business’ financial information just as you handle your own. Keep control of your EIN — it can be used to open new lines of credit for your business, among other things. Protecting your business’ information is mostly common sense: don’t give out your EIN to people you don’t trust and similar steps meant to limit access to your information are the main ways to protect yourself.

Odds are good that you’ve at least considered writing under a pen name at some point or another. One issue that might be holding you back is the question of copyright. Not to worry, though — even if you use a pen name, you enjoy the protections of copyright.

Just like any other work, pseudonymous writings are considered copyrighted whether or not you register them. There are a few differences in length of copyright, at least in the U.S, if you use a pen name: rather than remaining under copyright until 70 years after the author’s death, a pseudonymous work is protected until 95 years from the initial publication of the work, or 120 years from its creation, whichever term expires first. You can still get that longer copyright for work written under a pen name by registering it with the Copyright Office — which has a handy Pseudonym Factsheet.

It’s up to you to decide whether registering your work with the Copyright Office is necessary: it depends more on whether you expect to need to defend it than anything else.

If you’re self-employed full-time, don’t forget to mail your third quarter estimated tax payment. It’s due on September 15.

While I agree with the principle of quarterly payments — unfortunately, a lot of us would forget to save for taxes entirely — I do wish the mechanics of the situation were a little simpler.

For instance, there’s a convenience fee if you want to pay online rather than mailing a check. I can’t see how the IRS finds it more convenient to sort through big piles of paperwork, rather than receiving an electronic file. At the very least, it should reduce paper cuts.

I am pretty fond of the home office tax deduction: because I work from home, I get to write off a percentage of my rent and utilities. But there is no question that there are some hoops you have to jump through if you want the deduction.

The SBA has come to the conclusion that small businesses — the category most freelancers fall into — have an unfair burden during tax season. The Office of Advocacy (an independent agency within the SBA) is offering support for S.3371, a bill currently under consideration in the Senate. It’s the Home Office Deduction Simplification and Improvement Act of 2008.

While I am not a tax expert, I think a standard home office deduction would make our taxes easier. If you agree, it’s worth reminding your Senator that he or she represents small businesses and freelancers, as well as bigger businesses. Take a minute and send in an email in support of S.3371.

I like contracts — they tend to simplify writing gigs because everyone knows expectations, payments and other details of the project. My rule is always get a contract.

I break that rule regularly, though.

I routinely write fairly short pieces — one offs for clients — that I don’t draw up a contract for. I also do short pieces for publication that I’m comfortable skipping the contract. It comes down to the simple decision of how mcuh the project is worth. If I’m writing something that I’ll only get paid $35 for, perhaps just a half-hour of work, it’s really not worth my time to get a contract.

On $35, after all, if a client decides not to pay you, there is surprising little you can do to collect, even if you have a contract. It costs far more than $35 to take someone to small claims court, even if they live in your immediate vicinity. It sucks, but that’s life.

Even if I can’t protect myself with a contract, though, I do take measures to guarantee that I’ll get paid for my work. Just Googling a prospective client’s name can be enough to show if he’s caused problems for any other freelancers.

Working without a contract is acceptable, at least in situations where it would take more time to draw up a contract than it would to complete the project. I do recommend them, though, for any project involving a significant sum of money.

I found out about a bunch of scammers targeting website owners from Writer Beware. Essentially, a group of scam artists are looking up who owns a given website and then sending the owner an email from “the US Copyright Registry,” claiming that the website in question is not copyrighted.  For a measly $350, the scammers will take care of it, though.

Unfortunately, if you run a website — and if you’re a freelance writer, I’ve been telling you to for the last who knows how long — you open yourself up a bit to these sorts of idiots. The best protection you can have against them is to know your own legal rights, like the fact that you hold the copyright on your website whether or not you’ve registered it.

CCH specializes in tax and business law information and makes a point to make themselves available to journalists (including freelance writers and other flavors of professional writers) to help provide reliable tax information. They also publish a free guide to provide specialized tax help to journalists and photographers. More information on the guide is available on their site.

To get the guide, simply email Leslie Bonacum at mediahelp [at] cch [dot] com. This guide is printed — hard copy rather than an ebook — so you’ll need to include a mailing address of some sort. There is no charge for the guide.