If you are a pianist who also runs a dental practice through an S-Corp, the short answer is this: you can often cut your overall tax bill by paying yourself a reasonable salary, taking the rest as distributions, tracking business expenses carefully, using a retirement plan through the S-Corp, and coordinating all of that with your personal income from music. A focused approach to CPA for high-income dentists can help you keep more of both your dental and piano income, as long as you follow the rules and document what you do.
That is the precise answer. The longer answer is a bit more layered, and honestly, it feels a lot like practicing a complex piano piece. You have the left hand and the right hand. Dentistry is one hand, music is the other, and your taxes are what happens when both hands try to play in time together.
Why this matters if you earn from both dentistry and music
If you are reading a music site, there is a good chance you do not see yourself only as a dentist. Maybe you play gigs on weekends, teach a few piano students, or record tracks when you have time. The dental practice might pay most of the bills, but the music side is still real work, with real income and real tax questions.
Here is where it can get messy:
- Your dental income might pass through an S-Corp.
- Your piano income might be reported on a Schedule C, or maybe through another LLC, or maybe you just get 1099s.
- Your expenses mix together in real life, even if they should not on paper.
So you end up asking yourself things like: Can I write off the keyboard I bought? Can I deduct that course on hand posture that helps with both piano and ergonomic advice in the dental chair? Can I lower my Medicare tax by changing how I pay myself from the S-Corp?
Many dentist musicians miss tax savings not because the rules are too complex, but because their financial life feels split into separate “worlds” that never get planned together.
Let us walk through how the S-Corp side works, then connect it to your music income in a way that is realistic, not theoretical.
How an S-Corp for your dental practice actually saves tax
I have seen many dentists think that forming an S-Corp is magic on its own. It is not. The mechanism is simple, and if you play both dentistry and piano, it might actually be easier to grasp by thinking in terms of parts and roles.
The basic idea: salary vs distribution
With an S-Corp, you have two main ways money reaches you:
| Type of payment | Tax treatment | What it feels like |
|---|---|---|
| W-2 salary | Subject to income tax and payroll taxes (Social Security and Medicare) | You paying yourself as the “employee dentist” |
| S-Corp distribution | Subject to income tax only (no payroll taxes on top) | You collecting profits as the “owner” |
The classic S-Corp move is:
- Pay yourself a reasonable salary for the clinical work you do.
- Pay the rest of the profit to yourself as a distribution.
That second piece often escapes extra payroll taxes. The savings can be large for a high income dentist. Not wild or magical, but real.
The S-Corp does not reduce your income tax rate by itself. The main savings come from lowering how much of your income is hit with Social Security and Medicare taxes.
What “reasonable salary” really means for a dentist
This part usually makes people nervous. Reasonable salary is not a fixed number. It depends on:
- Your role in the practice
- How many hours you work clinically
- Your region and typical dentist rates
- What you would have to pay another dentist to do the same work
If you are earning, say, 600,000 dollars from the practice, you might pay yourself a salary in the range of what a working dentist in your area earns as an associate, then take the rest as distributions. You still pay income tax on both, but only the salary piece is subject to payroll taxes.
If your music income is separate, you do not run that through the same S-Corp salary. That is normally self-employment income. This creates an odd split: the same person is an employee of an S-Corp as a dentist, while also being a self-employed pianist.
Where your music world collides with your practice world
This is where I think things get interesting. You live one life, but the tax code sees multiple roles at once.
One person, two income streams
Imagine a year where you earn:
| Source | Type | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Dental S-Corp salary | W-2 wages | 250,000 |
| Dental S-Corp distributions | Pass-through income | 200,000 |
| Piano gigs and lessons | Schedule C self-employment | 30,000 |
When you look at that mix, three big questions come up:
- How do payroll taxes interact with self-employment taxes?
- Can your retirement plan through the S-Corp also help shelter music income?
- Where do shared expenses go, if they touch both dentistry and music?
None of these have simple, one line answers, but you can set up your year in a way that respects the rules and still helps you pay less tax overall.
Payroll tax and self-employment tax: the rhythm underneath
Think of payroll tax and self-employment tax as the steady click of a metronome. It is always there, and if you ignore it, the whole thing gets out of sync.
Social Security and the cap problem
There is a Social Security wage base limit. Once your combined wages and self-employment earnings pass that limit, you stop paying the Social Security part of the tax for that year. Medicare, on the other hand, does not fully stop, and there is an extra Medicare surtax at higher income levels.
Here is the part that matters for a dentist pianist:
- Your W-2 from the S-Corp counts toward the Social Security limit.
- Your self-employment piano income also counts.
If your S-Corp salary already hits the cap, the Social Security portion of self-employment tax on piano income may drop away, which changes the actual tax effect of that extra side income. It still pays Medicare tax and income tax, but the picture shifts a bit.
Your mix of S-Corp salary, distributions, and piano income affects how much of each tax you pay, even if your total income stays the same.
Retirement plans that work for both hands of your career
Here is where things start to feel more like arranging a piece for two pianos. You can set up one plan through the S-Corp and another plan for your self-employed piano work, within limits.
S-Corp retirement plan
Your dental S-Corp can sponsor a 401(k) or a defined benefit plan. With high income, a custom plan can let you defer a large amount of money each year. The numbers can be very large once you are in your 40s or 50s, depending on the design.
The big levers are:
- Employee deferral from your W-2 salary
- Employer contribution from the S-Corp profits
The plan rules and testing will be shaped by how many staff you have, what they earn, and how long they have worked there. So this part needs someone who lives in this world every day, not a quick plug-in formula.
Solo plan for piano income
Your piano income is separate self-employment. You might be able to set up a solo 401(k) or a SEP IRA for that income alone. That lets you shield part of your gig and teaching money.
The catch is that your total employee deferrals across all 401(k) plans are capped each year. You do not get a fresh limit for the piano side. The employer contribution piece, though, is separate per unrelated business, with some rules.
This is where I see a lot of confusion. Someone will say “I can just add another plan on the music side and double dip.” That is not how it works. The combined limits still apply, but you can sometimes structure it so that you get more employer contribution across both roles in a careful way.
Expenses that cross over: where your music and clinic overlap
This part feels more human because our actual lives do not split cleanly. You might buy a laptop that you use for charting in the practice, but also for recording tracks. You might take a posture workshop that you use to help both your patients and your own hand position at the piano.
The tax code is not very poetic about this. It has straightforward questions:
- Is there a clear business purpose for the dental practice?
- Is there a clear business purpose for your piano activity?
- Can you support how you split the cost between them?
You might decide, for example, that a 2,000 dollar laptop is used 60 percent for dentistry, 40 percent for music. One part gets deducted in the S-Corp; the other part goes on your Schedule C for piano. The key is to pick a split that you can defend and then stick to it.
Where people often go wrong is trying to push obviously personal expenses into one of the business buckets. A fancy grand piano for your living room might be partly just for your own joy. If you really use it for teaching or recording, then some portion can be a business asset. Just be honest with yourself about that split, even if the number feels less clean than you hoped.
Health insurance and fringe benefits through the S-Corp
If you are paying your own health insurance, your S-Corp structure can help here too. There are some extra steps, but the effect can be useful when your income is high.
Self-employed health insurance deduction
With an S-Corp, health insurance for a more than 2 percent owner is treated in a special way:
- The S-Corp can pay or reimburse the premiums.
- The amount is added to your W-2 as wages for income tax, but not for Social Security and Medicare.
- You can then take an above-the-line deduction for that health insurance on your personal return, subject to some limits.
The net effect is that you can often get a cleaner deduction for what you are already paying, which matters when you are stacking dental and music income on one personal tax return.
Other benefits
You can also do things like health reimbursement arrangements or flexible spending accounts, but these interact with staff rules and other regulations. For a dentist who also plays piano professionally, the real question is: how much benefit can you run through the practice, and how much should stay tied to your personal side work?
Keeping good records without losing your mind
Dental work is already demanding. Add rehearsals, gigs, teaching, maybe some recording, and there is not much energy left for detailed bookkeeping. Still, the more mixed your income is, the more record keeping matters.
Separate accounts, even if your life is not separate
At a minimum, you probably need:
- A business account for the dental S-Corp
- A separate account for your self-employed music income
- Clean payroll records through a real payroll service for the S-Corp
Some people resist opening another bank account, but it really does help your brain. When money for piano work all flows through one account, it is easier to see what the music side truly earns and spends. You can still transfer profit to your personal account whenever you want, but at least the original activity is traced.
Good records are not about perfection. They are about making your tax story simple enough that you do not have to scramble every April trying to remember what happened twelve months ago.
Comparing S-Corp vs no S-Corp for a dentist who plays piano
Some dentists wonder if the S-Corp structure is worth the hassle when they also have a small music business. It might help to see a rough comparison, just to get a feel for the numbers before all the nuance piles on.
| Scenario | Dental income structure | Music income structure | Tax impact at a high level |
|---|---|---|---|
| A | Sole proprietor / single-member LLC | Schedule C | Most profit subject to self-employment tax, plus income tax |
| B | S-Corp with salary + distributions | Schedule C | S-Corp reduces payroll tax portion on dental profit, music still self-employment |
| C | S-Corp with well-planned salary and retirement plan | Schedule C with solo plan where allowed | Payroll tax savings plus deferred income in retirement accounts across both activities |
Scenario C takes the most planning, but for many high earning dentists who also make real music income, it usually gives the best long term result. Not perfect. Just better aligned with what is actually happening in your life.
Common mistakes I see with dentist S-Corps and side music income
This part may sound a bit blunt, but it is where people usually leave money on the table.
1. Paying an unrealistically low S-Corp salary
Trying to pay yourself a tiny salary from the dental practice and taking everything as distributions might feel clever. The IRS has seen that move many times. If your salary is far out of line with what a dentist in your situation would normally earn, you are asking for problems.
A better way is to pick a defensible salary, document why, and revisit it every year or two. You can adjust as your role or income changes. Think of it more like setting tempo: you can speed up or slow down, but the piece still has to make sense.
2. Ignoring the piano side when planning taxes
Some people handle planning only around the dental S-Corp and treat the music income as an afterthought. That often leads to:
- Missed deductions for music gear and travel
- No retirement plan contribution from the music side
- Surprise self-employment tax bills
Even if your piano money is smaller than your dental income, it still deserves a place in the overall plan.
3. Mixing personal and business spending
We all do this a little, but if your personal, dental, and music expenses are all pouring through the same accounts, your tax planning will always feel fuzzy. And when numbers are fuzzy, people either under-claim what they could or stretch too far into risky territory. Neither is great.
How to think about your year like a setlist, not a pile of forms
One thing that may help is to stop thinking about taxes as something you do once at the end of the year. Instead, think in terms of a loose schedule.
Quarterly rhythm
You can plan around a simple structure:
- Quarter 1: Review prior year, set salary and distribution targets, confirm retirement plan contributions for the new year.
- Quarter 2: Check actual S-Corp profit vs salary, adjust distributions, track piano income and big expenses.
- Quarter 3: Midyear tax forecast, refine estimated payments, tweak retirement contributions if needed.
- Quarter 4: Final year-end moves, such as equipment purchases, bonus timing, and retirement plan top-ups.
This is not about perfection. More like doing a run-through of a piece before the recital instead of sight reading on stage.
Where a specialist actually adds value for a dentist musician
I do not think every person needs a tax specialist. Some people like doing their own returns. For a high income dentist who also earns from piano, though, there are enough moving parts that having someone who understands S-Corps, retirement plan design, and mixed income sources can pay off.
Where a good advisor helps is not only in filling forms, but in answering questions like:
- What salary range for the S-Corp makes sense based on my actual production?
- How can we layer dental and music retirement plans without tripping over combined limits?
- Which expenses can be shared between the two activities, and how do we support those splits?
- How much should I set aside for quarterly estimates, given both income streams?
You do not have to accept every suggestion. In fact, sometimes you might decide to trade some tax savings for simplicity, especially if your schedule is full and your brain is tired from a week of patients and late night rehearsals. That is fine. The point is that you are choosing, not just drifting.
Practical examples that feel close to real life
To make this less abstract, here are three simple sketches. The numbers are made up, but the patterns are common.
Example 1: Busy dentist, small piano side
Maria runs a dental S-Corp that nets 400,000 dollars after staff and overhead. She also earns 12,000 dollars a year from occasional piano gigs.
- S-Corp pays her a 220,000 dollar salary, 180,000 dollars as distributions.
- She contributes the maximum employee deferral plus an employer contribution into a 401(k) through the practice.
- Piano income goes on Schedule C, with a few thousand in instrument and travel expenses.
Her S-Corp structure reduces payroll taxes on part of that 400,000. The piano side is too small to justify its own retirement plan, but she still tracks the expenses so she is not paying tax on the gross.
Example 2: Part-time dentist, growing piano studio
Eric cuts back his clinical hours to expand his teaching studio. His dental S-Corp now nets 220,000 dollars; his piano studio nets 80,000 after expenses.
- S-Corp salary is 150,000, distributions are 70,000.
- He has a 401(k) through the S-Corp and a solo 401(k) for the piano studio.
- Because of the combined contribution limits, his specialist helps him coordinate how much he puts into each plan.
The tax savings now come from three places: S-Corp payroll structure, retirement contributions on both sides, and careful treatment of shared expenses like recording equipment that he sometimes uses in the office for patient relaxation audio.
Example 3: High earning dentist, professional performer on the side
Lena earns 700,000 dollars net through her dental S-Corp and another 150,000 as a concert pianist and recording artist.
- S-Corp salary is set to match what a full time dentist in her market would earn as an associate.
- Remaining profit comes out as distributions.
- She invests heavily into a defined benefit plan through the S-Corp, plus a solo 401(k) for the music business.
For someone at this level, small decisions around salary, distributions, plan design, and expense allocation can move tens of thousands of dollars a year. That is a point where ignoring any side of the career starts to hurt.
One last Q&A to tie this back to your own life
Q: I am a dentist who plays piano and earns some side income. What is the single most practical step I can take this month?
A: Pick a specific time to do a simple review of your current year: list your dental income, your music income, your current S-Corp salary (if you have one), and what you have saved in retirement so far. Then ask one clear question: “If I were designing this from scratch, would I choose the same structure?” If the honest answer is no, that is your sign to change something before another full year passes.