Legally running a photo business

LAR694 said:

The website you need in SC is http://www.sctax.org . You can apply for for
tax ID number here-they will send you all the info you need. If you
really want to be a nice guy and "help your customer", split the
bill. Give one listing just service-no tax. On the other sell the
$100 dvd and tax it.

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I'd consider that a risky practice. SC probably considers, as NC does, a photo disc (even web gallery) a taxable property. Our SC wedding photographer taxed the whole package. Before I attempted to bill seperately to avoid tax, I'd get a letter from the SC tax office stating that it was ok to do so. I doubt they would go for that.

But if you offer a 'product' that does involve photography as completely FREE they can't require a free product to be taxible can they? I really like my example of booking hours and giving them a free disk with the photos and then itemizing the leather cd case as the extra product I'm selling. This still might be me legit, which again is fine if I tax them on the whole thing anyways, but it seems like the only way I can find a loophole in the pricing of my packages. Can I charge for a service and give a free product with it?

And yeah I think I can prove I'm in business. I have a website, a business card, pay money on advertising, and have over $10,000 in equipment. I'd almost argue with that much investment it would have to be a business of someone my age and with my income. Surely only someone rich could persue a hobby in this manner. I do need the business account though to seal the deal.

patrickhall said:

But if you offer a 'product' that does involve photography as
completely FREE they can't require a free product to be taxible can
they?

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The SC Tax office told me that they consider photography "manufacturing". ANYTHING you do is working towards the final product (a print) - so they required you to tax everything.

One of the long-time professionals I talked to said that at one point he contested the tax law. At the time, he was 110% in compliance, not a thing wrong. But, just contesting it had a swarm of tax gestapo goons show up at his place of business and practically tear the place apart trying to find even one dime misplaced somewhere they could bust him on. It's a sad sad thing...

What really clouds the water is the internet though. What if I don't charge my clients anything at all? I show up and shoot for free . Then, I let them pay $175 for the first print from Exposuremanager? How the heck do you list that transaction with the various tax offices?

It's a shame that the code has gotten so difficult to figure out that you could end up paying lawyers and accountants more money that you're planning on making just to get it straight. I'm looking at it from the point of a hobby that could make a couple of hundred a month, and it's almost so complicated that's it's not even worth the trouble.

--

'Not everybody trusts paintings, but people believe photographs.' -- Ansel Adams

patrickhall said:

But if you offer a 'product' that does involve photography as
completely FREE they can't require a free product to be taxible can
they? I really like my example of booking hours and giving them a
free disk with the photos and then itemizing the leather cd case as
the extra product I'm selling. This still might be me legit, which
again is fine if I tax them on the whole thing anyways, but it seems
like the only way I can find a loophole in the pricing of my
packages. Can I charge for a service and give a free product with it?

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Nice try, but definitely not. Your photography is your product. If they receive your images, in any format, you collect tax. Period.

You sound like I did when I first started but you need to remember that it's not your responsibility to pay sales tax. The buyer pays it. You just collect it. I understand what you're trying to do, but ultimately it is what it is.

patrickhall said:

And yeah I think I can prove I'm in business. I have a website, a
business card, pay money on advertising, and have over $10,000 in
equipment. I'd almost argue with that much investment it would have
to be a business of someone my age and with my income.

Click to expand...

Don't be so sure! A business checking account would round all that off much better.