OnlyFans creator says models shouldn't pay tax: 'Charity work'

An Australian influencer has claimed that OnlyFans models “shouldn't have to pay tax” on their staggering incomes from the platform, as the Australian Taxation Office closely watches the industry.

Gold Coast-based Billie Beever, who won Best Female Porn Star at this year's Australian Adult Industry Choice Awards, spoke to Yahoo Lifestyle saying: “The more these girls talk about how much they're making, the less true it usually is.

“Usually just half what they say they're making and that's closer to the truth, then half it again because of tax and OnlyFans' cut."

Billie said that working in the industry leaves the creators open to hate messages and people telling them to get "real jobs".

“Every day we all get hate messages saying what we do isn't a real job, and we should go get a real job. So if that's true and the public really think that, we shouldn't pay taxes then, especially when we pay so much more than most people," she said. "Also why should we have to pay tax on our body parts if I choose to use them to make money?”

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Billie then justified this by saying doing OnlyFans often feels like “a public service” and likened it, especially when fulfilling custom requests from her subscribers, as “charity work”.

The model and influencer spoke out after a representative for the ATO previously said of OnlyFans: “It's a new industry and one we're watching to better understand, but the way we see tax deductions remains the same. We see OnlyFans creators as businesses with operating expenses and deductions.”

This year, the amount of models on OnlyFans has surged in Australia amid the cost of living crisis, with many finding themselves hit with huge tax bills.

Adult entertainer Tasha Paige, from the Gold Coast, was gobsmacked when her tax owing was calculated to be $86,000 but, after her accountant double-checked her work more recently, that figure was revised to just over $176,000.

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Running an OnlyFans account for profit is considered a business in the eyes of the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) and Tasha told Yahoo Finance that, although she recently cracked a seven-figure income, her earnings for the last financial year were less than that. However, her 2022-23 income was still substantially over the $18,200 tax-free threshold.

"It's annoying when [the government] are like, 'Oh, you guys have to pay GST now' when we're not actually, you know, selling a product per se. That kind of shows that they see us as a product because we earn by selling ourselves online," she said to Yahoo Finance.

"It's just a bit frustrating because we're not actually giving them anything that's an object; it's all virtual".

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