BudsOwl Loc: Upstate NY and New England

For those hoggers who sell photos, do you charge your customers nys sales tax? If you only sell an occasional print, do you charge the tax, and if so how do you send the state their share?
The reason I ask is that I have some people interested in a couple of my shots. If I have the picture printed commercially and then I may and frame it and let’s say I paid $35 for materials and sold the picture for $100, would I have to charge $8 tax and then remit that amount to the state even though I paid $2.80 in taxes?
Thanks in advance for any comments.

User ID

Sales tax is on the price, not on the
markup over your costs. OTOH, as a
manufacturer of prints, you wouldn't
have paid any sales tax on materials
or services involved in manufacturing
the finished product.

Ben Dare, Don Dat .... and altho the
simple explanation above is factual in
so far as the general idea, the reality
is so detailed that this forum is the
worst possible place to ask about it.

All the details are available from the
state. https://www.tax.ny.gov/

But the info is useless to you unless
you are a lawyer or accountant. One
thing you're possibly failing to grasp
is that the tax we pay whenever we
buy something is not just NYS sales
tax. It's a combination of 3 taxes at
3 different rates: state, county, and
city sales taxes.

I hope to have accomplished only 2
things by the above advice. Firstly,
to warn you not to get involved if
your sales are personal and minor.
Secondly, to warned you against
seemingly expert advice that may
be offered here in this huuuugely
inappropriate venue.

Once again ...
https://www.tax.ny.gov/

Best thing to do is just turn your
back on this thread, forget you
ever started it, and never read it.
I assure you, that is what I will
do right now.

.

Bill_de Loc: US

https://www.tax.ny.gov/forms/use_tax_and_casual_sales.htm
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Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Turn around and close one eye?

LFingar Loc: Claverack, NY

The sales tax is supposed to be paid and reported, based on selling price. Your expenses don't factor in. If the purchaser pays NY State income tax and the transaction took place in NYS then you don't necessarily have to be the one to collect the tax. NYS income tax forms have a line on which the taxpayer is supposed to give a dollar amount of such purchases and then pay the required sales tax. That's the way it is usually done for private sales. If you sell someone a car the state doesn't expect you to collect the sales tax even though you could. Sales tax gets paid when the buyer goes to register it. For private sales the state expects the buyer to pay the tax either through registration, etc, or by reporting it at income tax time. Most people tend to overlook that line on the income tax form. That's their responsibility, not yours. If you are selling to someone out of state from a NYS location then the dynamic changes and to be absolutely legal you should collect and report the sales tax. Bill de provided a link to the forms. Once again, most people tend to overlook that for small purchases. It comes down to your conscience and any guilt feelings you may have about not paying the tax. The state is not going to hunt you down because the state isn't going to know the transaction took place.
https://www.tax.ny.gov/bus/st/stmp.htm

BudsOwl Loc: Upstate NY and New England

Thank you, sounds like great advice.
Bud

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Normally one would get a sales tax license for their business.
Supplies you buy would normally be tax exempt, and you collect sales tax and report sales and remit the tax collected. Submission would be quarterly, monthly, or yearly depending on the volume.

LFingar Loc: Claverack, NY

In NYS business owners must report sales taxes quarterly regardless of volume. I do my brother's sales tax reporting for him. He has been repairing farm equipment since the sixties but has yet to buy a computer or figure out how to use it!

Dannj

From the way you present it this seems like a casual, infrequent event not an ongoing business so my simple advice would be don’t worry about the sales tax. That might not be to the letter of the law but that’s what I would do.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Obviously it depends on the state. I believe Colorado is quarterly also. I'm not aware of all of the state details, just that Florida depends on the volume whether it's quarterly or not. So I was giving the benefit of doubt for the "states".

cjc2 Loc: Hellertown PA

I would also suggest that you follow the sage advice given by UserID and others that are similar. Sales Tax is a complicated question. I am not in New York, yet I would expect laws to be similar to PA but not the same. My photography is a business for which I have, among other things, insurance and a PA State Tax License. Generally speaking, I can purchase things without paying Sales Tax as long as they are used to produce what I sell, and I collect PA Sales Tax on the sale price. From there it gets way more complicated. My personal advice, although it probably isn't entirely legal, is that if you sell one photo a year and pay the sales tax on the materials, don't spend too much time worrying about it unless you contact a tax or legal professional. Best of luck.

Bill_de Loc: US

Excerpt from "Instructions for casual sale in NY"


Every person making a casual sale of items subject to New York State and local sales taxes must file this form. We suggest that the seller give each purchaser a receipt that states the amount of sales tax collected on the sale.

See link above.

That's different than the line on the income tax form where the seller was not required to collect tax.

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LFingar Loc: Claverack, NY

Regardless of what is stated online there is virtually no enforcement of any kind regarding casual sales between individuals by NYS. The state wants these transactions reported and paid but the fact is that practically no one does. The state knows that but the tax department doesn't have the resources to enforce it and they are not going to deal with the public firestorm that would result if they tried to push the matter. As a lifelong resident of NY I can assure you an individual getting hassled over an occasional casual sale is unheard of.

Bill_de Loc: US

I figured the OP wanted to know the right way. Then they can decide if they want to be honest or not.

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DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

I'm assuming this is a one-shot thing. You have a couple photos you want to sell. It's not like you have a business producing photos for sale. I don't know the details for New York state but I suspect that if you want to collect sales tax you have to have a license from the state. There's probably a fee for the license. Is it worth paying the fee to collect $8 in sales taxes? I'm sure the state would enjoy receiving the fee plus the $8, but I don't see them trying to keep track of all the violations of this requirement.

If you were to have a garage sale to get rid of stuff cluttering up your garage (and/or house) would you charge sales tax? I have never seen it done (not that I go to that many garage sales).

If anyone asks, I would characterize the transaction as a reimbursement rather than a sale. Your friend is paying you back for your costs in producing the framed photo. Surely you can come up with a list of things that go into the photo: commercial printing, material for the frame, mileage for collecting materials, postage, whatever. If anyone asks, you would need time to find where you put that list, which would give you time to generate the list. But who's going to ask?

So unless you are planning to make a habit of providing photos for people, I would say you could probably ignore the sales tax. If you are planning to continue doing this then you will have to start a business and go through all the hoops. If you do that, anything you purchase for resale should be exempt from the sales tax since you will charge the end user for it. To claim the exemption you will have to have some sort of proof that it's for a business (e.g. a business certificate, something I got from my Town Clerk when I had a business). It will also require you to keep good records.

I would say this is similar to buying something outside your state for use within the state. Many if not most states require you to pay the sales tax (or use tax) for such things. Very few people actually do, but it is technically required. In Massachusetts, my accountant told me that there was a "safe harbor" amount you could pay the state in lieu of keeping track of out of state purchases and submitting the paperwork to pay the use tax.

PS: my stepdaughter started her own business. Just in filing fees and business taxes she had to put out something like $400