3D printing service taxes and deductions

Printers are Section 179 property and come off in the year they start running. Resin and filament are supplies deductible as used, including everything consumed by prints that failed, which is a real and deductible cost rather than a mistake to hide.

Design work billed alongside printing is a service with no materials against it and a very different margin. Selling finished goods rather than a printing service makes you a manufacturer, with inventory. Resin handling and disposal is regulated in some jurisdictions and those costs are deductible.

The deductions with a rule attached

These are the lines where the answer is not simply "keep the receipt"each has a cap, a percentage or a test that decides how much of the spend you actually get:

Equipment: Section 179 property. Deduct the whole cost in the year it goes into service rather than spreading it over the asset's life, up to $2,560,000 a year, and 100% bonus depreciation is now permanent. The catch is the business-use test: anything used more than 50% for the business qualifies, and you deduct at that percentage rather than the full price. So anything you also use at home comes off at the share that is genuinely work, not the whole invoice.
Computer: Section 179 property. Deduct the whole cost in the year it goes into service rather than spreading it over the asset's life, up to $2,560,000 a year, and 100% bonus depreciation is now permanent. The catch is the business-use test: anything used more than 50% for the business qualifies, and you deduct at that percentage rather than the full price. So anything you also use at home comes off at the share that is genuinely work, not the whole invoice.

The rest of the 3D printing service deduction list

Ordinary and necessary business expenses, deductible in full in the year you pay them, provided they are genuinely for the business:

Materials and supplies
Software subscriptions
Shop rent
Utilities
Marketing
Waste and disposal charges

Worth knowing

Printers are Section 179 property and resin and filament are supplies, but a print that fails is a cost with nothing to show for it.

That is what is specific to this trade. The larger deductions are the universal ones, see the full checklist.

What each deduction is worth to you

On $100,000 of profit with no state income tax, $1,000 deducted saves $305, 30.5%, because it comes off self-employment tax and income tax together:

Net profit	Saved per $1,000 deducted	Effective
$40,000	$231	23.1%
$100,000	$305	30.5%
$200,000	$297	29.7%

The last row is worth less than the one above it, and that is not a mistake: past the Social Security wage base the self-employment part of the saving drops from 15.3% to 2.9%, and the higher income-tax bracket does not quite make up the difference. A deduction is worth most in the middle.

Add a state income tax and every row rises. The 1099 calculator applies that layer.

What these words mean

Section 179: A rule letting you deduct the whole cost of equipment in the year you start using it, instead of spreading it over the years you own it.
Depreciation: Spreading the cost of something long-lasting, a vehicle, a camera, a tractor, across the years you use it, rather than deducting it all at once.

General information about how these deductions work, not tax advice. Whether a particular expense is deductible for you depends on facts this page does not have, check with a tax professional before claiming anything listed here.