Sponsorship

[cjsracing]

Talking about taxes and such. When filling out a 1099 at the race tracks, I hate having to put my social security number on it especially when I visit several places a year. Is there any around this. Instead having my race team as a entity, I was wondering if a person could just incorporate their selves so they could have a FEIN #.

Yes. My race team is set up as a partnership. It has it's own FEIN and files it's own tax return. It's actually really easy to do.

Most of the people being audited because of their racing is because it is setup as a sole proprietorship and using a Schedule C on the persons personal tax return to report it's income/expenses. Continually reporting loses via Schedule C will most likely draw IRS eyes.

[rosco]

Thanks everyone for their input thus far

[0cents]

Just a small thought when looking for sponsorship. Telling them that it will be a tax write off should be that last thing you'd want to use as a pitch to them. Instead you should consider telling them what good you can bring to their business from their contribution to your race team.

[Lizardracing]

Better yet sell it as something fun or part of a bigger marketing plan. Simply and factually stated, you're dirt car doesn't get in front of enough people in a demographic area to make a hill a beans of advertising for that business unless it national or at the very least regional. For example, Grandma's Cookie Corner in the big shopping mall isn't trying to sell cookies to a clientele that two hours away where you like to race.
Market branding on the hand, has a good ROI but only when part of a global approach. Grandma's Cookie Corner might if she were trying to go online for example. Even then, your selling the brand name to the potential customer and not the actual product.

The only way I was successful with advertising was either selling fun for those few people who were into the sport, wanted some involvement in the sport, or simply had no idea that a $1000 spent with me was wasted money because buying a 30 second local radio time reached WAY more people. Second to all that, I had a premier plan for a potential business partnership. That was taking over the entire marketing budget for a business or if they didn't have one, building one for them. That included door mailers, billboards, radio advertising, street signs, special appearances, autograph sessions etc... It's all part of reaching out to the masses and getting them to identify with the brand. You're gonna have to get creative because not all business have much in common with auto sports like a dentist office, PC repair store, attorneys and such. In order to figure out how to help the companies brand itself, you need to have a sit down and discover exactly what the mission statement is for the business and where they want to be in a year, 5 years and 10 years.
It all ends up being so much work, (not a nice word)(not a nice word)(not a nice word)(not a nice word) near a full time job, plus a real full time job, plus the hobby is also (not a nice word)(not a nice word)(not a nice word)(not a nice word) near full time, seeking sponsorship that NOT actually wasted money is very difficult aside from a business in the automotive field but even then they are facing the same pitfalls of demographics.
My advice to is too think services. A business is usually much more able to part with a service than cold hard cash.
Car washes or sheet metal or lettering and things like that save YOU money but still provide something for them.