For performers, studios and creator businesses with taxable income near or over the threshold

Performing arts is a specified service. The deduction fades above the line.

Limelight works the section 199A deduction for one performing-arts business: whether it is performing arts at all, by where its receipts come from; then the threshold, the phase-in range, the applicable percentage, the wage and property limit, the income cap and the 2026 minimum — every step, with the other year’s rules side by side.

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Opens in this browser with an invented creator already in it. No account, no email address, nothing installed.

Limelight with its example records in it

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The problem

Most performers find out in April.

Section 199A gives most pass-through businesses a deduction of 20% of qualified business income. Performing arts is a specified service field under section 1202(e)(3)(A), so above the threshold the deduction shrinks and, at the top of the phase-in range, is gone. The planning — salary, retirement contributions, how the business is split — has to happen before the year ends, not when the preparer calls.

20%

of qualified business income: the pass-through deduction under section 199A.

26 U.S.C. § 199A →

Performing arts

is named among the specified service fields.

26 U.S.C. § 1202(e)(3)(A) →

$75,000

the phase-in range for single filers ($150,000 joint) for years beginning after 2025.

26 U.S.C. § 199A →

Will not keep a result that was guessed.

Keep this for the file refuses while an input is missing. A tax year Limelight does not hold asks for its threshold from the IRS instructions rather than inventing one. A kept result is frozen with the inputs it was worked from.

How it works

The business, the numbers, the answer

Is it performing arts?

Receipts by kind: performing, distributing others’ work, equipment or studio hire, anything else. The share from performing decides it.

Enter the numbers

Year, filing status, taxable income, net capital gain, QBI, W-2 wages, property basis and participation.

Read what survives

Every step to the deduction, and the share of a full 20% you keep, beside the other year’s rules.

What it will never do

It works one business. It files nothing.

Several businesses, REIT dividends and PTP income are not worked here. Your preparer handles the return.

No guessed thresholds.2024 and 2025 are built in; any other year is entered from the IRS instructions.

No filing.Nothing goes to the IRS.

It is not an accountant.Not tax advice. Take the steps to your preparer before December.

It never touches a payment.The licence is for software.

Pricing

Priced per year

At these incomes the difference is thousands of dollars.

Most performers

One business

$29/year

One performing-arts business, one year.

Performing-arts test by receipts
Every step of the phase-out
Both years’ rules side by side

Two years

$49 for two years

This year and next, for planning.

Everything in One business
Results kept with their inputs
Export for your preparer

Yearly licence. Your bank statement says Limelight Software. Refunded in full on request within 30 days. Your licence key is emailed to you within two working days of payment.

Checkout is our own bitcoin server, not a card processor — nobody we had to apply to and nobody who can close the account. The button takes you straight to it. Give your email address there — that is where your key is sent.

Questions

The ones we actually get asked

Is my creator business performing arts?

It turns on the receipts. Performing is; distributing other people’s performances and renting out equipment or a studio are not. A 10% de minimis line applies.

What changed for 2026?

The phase-in range widened to $75,000 ($150,000 joint), and a $400 minimum deduction applies for active QBI of $1,000 or more.

What can I do about it?

The levers are planning ones — salary, retirement contributions, how the business is split — and they need to happen before the year ends. Limelight shows what is at stake.

Is this tax advice?

No. It is the working your preparer would otherwise show you in April.

What do I actually get when I pay?

The demo on this page is the whole program, running on invented records. Paying gets you a licence key — one line of text, emailed to the address you give at checkout within two working days. Paste it into the program and from then on it keeps your own records. Until then, nothing you type into it is kept.

The key is checked inside the page, on your own machine. It never calls us, so there is still no account and nothing about your business goes anywhere. If you ever stop paying, your records stay exactly where they are, read-only, and Export still hands you every one of them.

Open the demo before December

The invented creator performs on her own site, distributes two other creators there and rents out her studio: 86% performing, $25,000 into the 2025 phase-out. She keeps $9,075, about a quarter of the full deduction. Limelight shows every step.

Open the demo See pricing