Thinking about starting your own photography business, or already have one up and running? Have you thought about all the legal requirements of running your own business including things like tax reporting not only to the federal government but your own state as well?

Austin photographer and artist Eric Setter is diving into the world of sales tax for the State of Texas. Down here, the law is that photography services, not just products, are taxable and to sell those you are required to have a Sales Tax Reseller License from the state. If they find out you’ve been selling products and not charging sales tax it can get ugly, and can ruin a fledgling small business.

There are a few select states that have no sales tax, and kudos to you if you live there! Just don’t forget about your State Income Tax reporting… For everyone else, make sure you check with your State Comptroller’s Office to find out if you should be charging sales tax. When you do, anything you buy in order to resell should not have sales tax charged on it so make sure your vendors have your ID number on file (again, this is your State Sales Tax Reseller ID number and not your Federal EIN or SSN) and the products aren’t double taxed.

Once you’ve got that all setup come check us out at Canvas Press Pro, which offers special discounts and products just for professional photographers and artists who are reselling the things they buy from Canvas Press.

Read Eric’s story as he learns about charging sales tax for his photography business:

As part of my evolving self-education in the realm of entrepreneurship, I recently was alerted to the fact that there are several things one needs to really get set up right.

• Set up your business structure (which can be as easy as setting up a DBA)
• Get a Tax ID (Also pretty easy)
• Get a Sales & Use Tax permit (not the same as the Tax ID)

The last one there is what just bit me. The permit is what many of you have probably seen hanging up in a public area of any business you’ve been in in Texas. It’s a piece of paper with a Texas flag watermark and basically it allows you to collect the sales tax you’re supposed to be collecting. Places get shut down if they’re not in compliance or don’t have one. The standard nowadays is to file quarterly and pay the state comptroller those sales taxes you’ve collected. Again, this is completely separate from your income tax filing.

I’m in the process now of filing an annual report for 2010 and another for the first quarter of this year. Let me tell you I’m not having fun finding out I’ve not been in compliance. In case you missed it, you need to file (and pay) sales & use tax reports quarterly. Also, know that photography as a service is still taxable. I am not a tax professional but so far what I’ve been directed to is a special publication by the Texas comptroller that directly addresses photography businesses. That publication is located here. One of the opening statements contradicts what had been my (mis)understanding of taxable products has caused me to re-visit my pricing structure and categorization of products in Quickbooks. Here is that paragraph with my added emphases underlined:

Luckily, I’ve not been busting at the seams with business and hopefully the burden will be minimal. Still, I owe the government money and they can be jerks about charging interest and fees. Let’s hear it for mercy for the little guy! I encourage anyone out there with a small service based business to check into what their responsibilities are because it’s something you want to deal with sooner rather than later. As I think I mentioned before, the government tends to be pretty unforgiving in their charging of interest and late fees…

Canvas Press recently did a project of large scale canvases with float frames for Lanx, a medical device company out of Colorado that designs spinal implants. They sent in dozens of beautiful wildlife shots to spruce up their blank new walls, and they knew that photos on canvas in float frames was just the look they wanted.

Executive Assistant Renee Bohlen, in charge of the project, shared the details with us. “We recently consolidated our offices into one space and had no art on the walls.  The office was drab and was bringing the office morale down.  As we are a Colorado company, management had the idea of employees submitting their own Colorado nature themed photos.  We picked the favorites and had them enlarged and framed to decorate the walls…

The colors really livened up the office and people are excited to have their pictures displayed.  We plan to do another round of photo submissions to fill in some of the remaining empty spaces. Our thought is down the road we will auction off some of the favorite pieces, donate the money to charity and then replace them with new submitted photos.  This was a very successful and meaningful project for the employees.”

Soon they’ll post name plates next to each piece that explain who took the picture, where it was and the title of the piece named by the photographer. This gives the employees a great sense of participation and recognition by their company. The skill and quality of the photographs are professional-grade. As an artform, photography is very technical (when you want it to be) and we’ve seen many customers who work in hi-tech industries that take amazing photos and really bring their creative side out by printing with us. It is great to see a company rewarding employees for their talent, Lanx sounds like a wonderful place to work!

If you have an office with boring, empty walls share this idea with your management and give us a call. Canvas Press can help you create a positive working environment that allows everyone to participate by printing their photos on canvas.

iJango, an internet startup with a downtown Austin office had Canvas Press make a collection of canvas prints to decorate the walls. Using art from their own company in the form of logos and website screenshots, we were able to help them make a very personalized workspace.

At Canvas Press, we use FedEx to ship your orders. With our central Texas location, we can send packages to all 50 states within one week. The color -coded Ground Service Map below gives estimated shipping times from our zip code 78665.

Hot Pink – 1 Day

Blue – 2 Days

Orange – 3 Days

Green – 4 Days

Purple – 5 Days

Yellow – 6 Days

Navy – 7+ Days

 As you can see, most of the country requires 3 days for shipping. Rush shipping is available; prices vary according to order size and delivery location.  For more information check out the FedEx Ground Service site,

http://www.fedex.com/grd/maps/MapEntry.do

Name: Travis

Job: Stretcher Extraordinaire

Experience: Commissioned portraitist and muralist, freelance artist

Favorite Canvas Press Order: Any personal shot, landscapes from around the world, not the stock images of sunsets or what-have-you

Funniest on-the-job Story: We were busy, maybe with the 50 piece Bon Jovi order when the most obtrusive and deafening alarm went off. It sounded like a giant cricket had found a megaphone and was standing right next to my ear. When we made sure we weren’t in any danger, we continued on Bon Jovi for about an hour all the while being berated by the vicious cricket.

Favorite Color: Ultramarine blue

Dream Vacation: I want to become nomadic and explore the entire globe.

Pets: The most adorable Bichon named Finley.

Music: My Morning Jacket & Modest Mouse

Reads: Just finished a Hyruki Morakami novel and started The Gift by Lewis Hyde.

Last Movie You Watched: Religulous

Guilty Pleasure: Mocha, hot or cold, double, single, day or night

On a Saturday, I can be found: In my makeshift studio also known as my bedroom.

2009 Resolution: Go with the flow and if it’s not flowing the way I want it to, changing the flow.