Photography Business

[From_the_NEK]

Whelp, I finally did it...
I officially registered my photography business. I needed to do it in order to get paid for a large photo someone (a business) wants to buy.
With the small amount I've been making off of my photography I could probably remain under the radar but I suppose this will allow me to expand if I want to and take on more "official" jobs in the future.

Uggh, keeping better track of tax shit is going to suck. But in the end it will likely be better than trying to combine profits into my personal income.

I guess I'll see where this goes. Time to hire a CPE?

[tBatt]

Congrats! I started one back in October. A few things I’ve learned so far. I use quickbooks self employed for mine and got a credit card for the company. It’s $5/mo (then goes to $10 after three months or a year or
something. You can automatically track your mileage (tax deduction) and spending if you link your CC to it. That makes your taxes considerably easier and tells you what your estimated quarterly payments are.

You can send invoices and accept ACH transfers (free) and credit cards (for a 2.5% fee I think). Don’t try accepting an ACH transfer for a large sum from a family member, Quickbooks will cancel it and send your money back.

Make sure to set aside money for paying quarterly taxes including self employment tax.

If you have a tax ID number you can set up an solo 401k for the business for tax advantage purposes and more aggressive savings for retirement.

Good Luck!


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[Tye 1on]

Nice work NEK! Seems like just a year or two ago you got the T3i and a couple of lenses, you've put some time into this!

[Supermoon]

Nice! I did the same a couple of years ago. It's a nice way to write off most of your photography gear as well!

I set myself up as a single-person LLC, and got a biz specific credit card. You have to keep all of your business spending separate from any individual spending to keep your liability protections.

You probably need a business license technically, but I'm sure you could get away without one for a short time. Having that, and an EIN makes things like insurance much easier. At least it did for me.

[AdironRider]

Good for you man, seen your photos a bunch over on AZ (gasp!) and they sure show some talent and a great view of VT.

[BaNosser]

Congrats Tim!! Here's to success!!

[dfinn]

Nice! I did the same a couple of years ago. It's a nice way to write off most of your photography gear as well!

I set myself up as a single-person LLC, and got a biz specific credit card. You have to keep all of your business spending separate from any individual spending to keep your liability protections.

You probably need a business license technically, but I'm sure you could get away without one for a short time. Having that, and an EIN makes things like insurance much easier. At least it did for me.

Do you guys think it's worth the hassle of going through all of this for the savings you get when writing everything off? I was thinking about this last night and I could probably write off just about every trip I take as photography related. I know squat about taxes though and am not sure if that would be worth it in the end for the hassle of dealing with all the tax BS.

[cmor]

Do you guys think it's worth the hassle of going through all of this for the savings you get when writing everything off? I was thinking about this last night and I could probably write off just about every trip I take as photography related. I know squat about taxes though and am not sure if that would be worth it in the end for the hassle of dealing with all the tax BS.

Some of it may come down to the IRS designation of a hobby vs a business. They would expect a business to be profitable at some point if not now.
If there is too much on the expense line that may make it harder to show future profitability of the venture.

[Supermoon]

Some of it may come down to the IRS designation of a hobby vs a business. They would expect a business to be profitable at some point if not now.
If there is too much on the expense line that may make it harder to show future profitability of the venture.

Yeah, I’ve been fairly careful about what I wrote off to make sure I’m staying profitable every year. Luckily I do consulting work as well so I just use the same LLC for all of it which helps with my photography write offs.

[smmokan]

Some of it may come down to the IRS designation of a hobby vs a business. They would expect a business to be profitable at some point if not now.
If there is too much on the expense line that may make it harder to show future profitability of the venture.

Yep, this. If you're not bringing in decent revenue and have large expenses, then it might come back to bite you in the ass. It's worth looking into with regards to the limits of being profitable and having paying clients, versus just writing everything off and hoping for the best.

There are also pretty strict rules on how much of a trip you can write off for your business, when it's something general like a vacation that can double as a photography-related business expense.