Tax Trouble

The last thing you want on your hands as a successful business-person is the issue of back-taxes. Some of the time it's because you decided not to pay them - most of the time it's because you didn't know you had to pay a particular tax. Depending on which state you reside in, and how you deliver your photos to your clients, you may or may not be subject to sales tax.

Check out an excerpt from a Photopreneur article on this matter:
"West argued that the demand for sales tax was wrong because even though he gave the completed film to the clients and didn’t even retain copyright over the images, his transactions were for services rather than tangible personal property. He also claimed that his relationship with his clients was that of employer/employee – a definition even few photographers would want to support. That meant the client always owned the photographs and he didn’t need to pay sales tax for what was effectively a salary. The court, perhaps not surprisingly, didn’t agree. He was ordered to pay 4.5 percent of the gross receipts of each sale for the three years covered in the audit."

Read the complete article here.

Also, Read Dan Heller's article, specifically the licensing guideines:
"Another situation in which sales tax is not charged is when you license images. (Licensing is when you sell someone a right to use an image, but you're not transferring a physical asset.) In California, licensing images is not subject to sales tax, but some states have different laws on this."

Read the complete article here.

Episode 104: Software Part 1

Episode 103: Exterior Equipment

 

Google Voice for your Business

We all know by now that Google's new (currently beta) service, 'Google Voice', is pretty neat - it allows you to have a single number that rings all of your existing lines. We just wanted to point it out as a great potential business tool. If you are starting your business, have a cell phone, but don't want to give that out to a bunch of strangers - then put in for a Google Voice invitation. Even if you don't have 2 or more phones you want to ring, it can easily be used to mask your personal cell phone number as you add a bunch of other features such as voicemail transcription, free SMS messaging, and assigning rules to particular groups/call screening.

If you have your own business, you more than likely have a BlackBerry, iPhone, or an Android Device. Both the BlackBerry OS and Android already have Google Voice apps. These allow you to dial out using your Google Voice number so the receiving caller sees the number they know. The apps also allow you to send and receive SMS text messages. There's a bit of a snag with the iPhone app, so we'll see where that one goes.

The one question that many people aren't asking is, 'Is Google Voice reliable enough for my business?' Well, at the moment, the hard truth is that the experience isn't trouble-free. As frustrating as phone companies are, they do connect calls reliably. Personally, I've had issues with Google Voice - some calls coming from Verizon Wireless phones were receiving a message telling them that they were calling a non-working number. I've been talking to friends when Google Voice has prompted them for a 2-digit code in the middle of a conversation. Little issues like these tell me that it's not ready for prime-time use yet, but it's an impressive start.

It should be noted that you can get a phone number from a variety of places online - one with the intended function of call-forwarding exclusively. However, watch the fees for these numbers. Many of the phone numbers you can get online (including the Skype's) will charge you forwarding fees per minute. Yeah, that's right, per minute.

So score an invite to Google Voice, test it until there's nothing left to test, then decide whether or not it's right for your business.

Check out Google voice here and submit a request for an invite here.

Exposure Fusion over HDR

I'm not going to lie, I'm a huge fan of Exposure Fusion. Even though it's only just beginning to emerge as a promising method for creating great real estate photos (among others), it still rocks, and it can even 1-up HDR in a few instances.

Digital Photography School did a quick summary of what it can offer, here's a clip:
"In short, EF takes the best bits from each image in the sequence and seamlessly combines them to create a final ‘Fused’ image. Or more technically, the fusing process assigns weights to the pixels of each image in the sequence according to luminosity, saturation and contrast, then depending on these weights includes or excludes them from the final image. And because Exposure Fusion relies on these qualities, no exif data is required, and indeed, if you wanted to, you could include an image with flash to bring darker areas to life."

Read the complete article here.

Episode 102: Interior Equipment

Episode 101: The Basics