Comments on: Shutterstock and Tax

By: stephen rudolph

stephen rudolph — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 10:55:56 +0000

I am one of those amateur ‘emtpy your hard drive’ who made up a
vast majority of shutterstock’s contributer universe. I was doing
this for a few extra bucks and as a hobby.
With this taxation situation, the extra forms and ammendments to
my personal income tax is not worth it. Since i only made $500 a
year, i never thought to claim the amounts to my government. I
don’t want the IRS sharing their data now with my government, so
i recently closed my account.
I can understand the sentiment of many Europeans here as the USA has not been a favourite country in the last 8 years.
I was never happy getting .33 cents for an image which showed up in
a double page spread in a picture book.

By: Rafal

Rafal — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 17:09:52 +0000

Hello! IMVHO Mr. Oringer first reaction was a bit too strong, but I can understand them – no one likes to be offended (not directly of course). My first reaction reading that original version was “he has balls saying that”

cheers!

By: Zbynek Burival

Zbynek Burival — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 05:50:19 +0000

This was very badly (and thats still verypolitely said) planned step from SS. You frogot to mention couple important things Lee. I like your posts but this is abit too much favoring SS and it might seem that the “crowd tactics” and “angry contributors” are just common complaints. In short:

SS did announce this with very limited and sometimes obviously wrong info.

Jons reaction after some ppl got really angry was something which is not acceptable in fair business – deleting ppls portfolios just because I dont like their opinion is not rude, thats dictature. Whats really sad – many of those folks were right and SS later sent another mail claiming tax on US sales only, when they first announced charging 30% on ALL sales!

Its very complicated to obtain ITIN and deal with IRS. For many of contributors it of course means double taxation, especially for those who have no treaty with US. However SS claims there will be no double taxation…eh. IRS requires eg. original passport with biometrics, which is at first not acceptable for many ppl and second illegal in most countries! The paperwork on this issue is very time consuming, complicated and extremely frustrating for lot of non-native english speakers. Even more, all those stamps, legal notices, postal fees etc. will cost very significant amount of money. It will take at least few moths and Jon gave us 14 days – is he joking or what?! Whats most important – I dont like IRS to have my personal info – Im not US citizen, not working in US and not employed by US company. If they would like charge something like VAT from each sale, then ok. But filling tons of papers to give them money and later even more paperwork to claim my money back, OMG…

Summed up – SS requires something unacceptable by many ppl, charges them even more money from their hard earned small commision and SS admins were extremely totalitarian and very rude when ppl got angry after their unprepared steps about charging tax. We need to calm down alot including SS and make some agreement. This way the hammer landed only on contributors and they are of course angry.

By: Luis Santos

Luis Santos — Sun, 31 May 2009 21:40:24 +0000

thanks luceluceluce..

By: luceluceluce

luceluceluce — Sun, 31 May 2009 20:29:40 +0000

Luis, if you visit the ss forum, you will find all the information about how to apply for ITIN and how much it costs. Most people have also organised the information into country-specific threads.
x

By: Matulio

Matulio — Sun, 31 May 2009 17:18:33 +0000

I think that problem is not with withholding taxes itself (I worked in international consultancy company so i understand this issue) – it is regulation by state and there is no possibility to escape (except transfer of SS to another country where no withholding tax is applied).

I only want to emphisize two issues which were not treated in good manner by SS according to my opinion:

1. International taxes (what includes withholding taxes and double taxation treaties) are very complicated also big companies have specialised people or external consultants which are used to deal with. On beginnig, SS disclosed only some basic information and burden was put on submitters (among who is only few really big submitters which have some staff or advisor). I think some more information, and detailed tutorials should be prepared regarding all process for submiters from countries from the “list”.

2. Some information presented initially was not correct. I mean especially that whitholding tax should be applied on whole income. But some submitters correctly posted in the forum that it is not logical that also income where the source is outside US should be taxed and consequently there was update on this issue from SS. (and there were also some other information not clearly presented – If I rember good about providing of personal information).

cheers

By: Luis Santos

Luis Santos — Sun, 31 May 2009 14:27:03 +0000

Ok.. I will first enter SS, then earn some money (hope) and then i will take care of that… cheers and thanks

By: Lee Torrens

Lee Torrens — Sun, 31 May 2009 12:13:51 +0000

Luis, it will depend on your specific circumstances, so nobody can give you a certain answer.

By: Luis Santos

Luis Santos — Sun, 31 May 2009 11:40:26 +0000

hi Lee and others! i think this month i will join SS, because of my mistake but lets see what happen in a few days..! about this new taxes rules i think it is always bad but like other things in our countries we just need to follow in order to take one step forward, could be politics or other but that’s just the only way to go, just like you talked about the traditional photographer adapting to microstock business.. I am from Portugal, and it will be 10%, but i am thinking about how much will it take to get the papers in order, do you know or someone know how much will it cost??

cheers

By: microstockphoto

microstockphoto — Sun, 31 May 2009 11:30:09 +0000

Calculating taxes only US source income is the best news in a few days. There’s also a nice side-effect: we will eventually know where our buyers are from; full country details would be great but they’ll have to split at least US vs non-US countries, and statistics are always good for photographers

PS: Lee, great work as usual: you summarised thousands of posts in a few lines, in a plain and balanced article.