Running your own company means that a person has to often deal with sales tax and to protect one’s business, it is important to know what is taxable and what is not. In a world where there are so many services and products being made each day, it is a recurring discussion of what to tax and what not. The growing advancement of technology in our day to day life has also made things very complicated. As has now become a very common practice at events, it is often asked whether it is taxable or not.
To tax or not to tax:
It is a very straightforward answer for products like laptops that they are taxable, but it gets complicated for services provided to clients. Photographers have to deal with the complication that whether the digital photos are to be taxed too or not. The difference between tangible and intangible services being provided makes it harder to decide when to tax and what to tax. Not only is that but the laws of a state very complex too which makes things much more difficult. One state might tax event photography which the state would not. It would be advisable to consult the Australian Government Tax website.
Taxing from client side:
Jack from Party Photographers Melbourne (takes care of all of our photography needs) says that many of his corporate photography clients who hire his company to take photos will send through his tax invoice to the Accounts department, and it can be claimed as a business expense. This will be deductible come tax time for that company along with all of their other company expenses.
Taxing digital pictures:
Therefore, it is very important that services are taxable and photography falls under this category. They should especially be careful if they are providing the service with a product like pictures in a disk. In that case, then the disk will be taxable along with the services. Along with that, a photographer should remember that digital pictures are taxable too. Moreover, some photographers travel to other countries to take care of their clients too, so they should try to find out what are the laws of that country about taxing so that they do not face any problems. Thus, photography like any other service is taxable.
