If she's self employed SS tax will be about 7K right there. She may not
have a tax accountant. Lots of people don't and she could be in a high
tax state, which reduces your federal taxes but you can pay more to the
state. Then there's things like this. Connecticut for example
photographers are responsible for collecting sales tax on their
services. Connecticut's a small place and you're competing with
photographers from all neighboring states who may or may not have to
worry about collecting sales tax. You can't offset that against your
earnings, that's a cost to the customer, which goes into the final
package price. She might even be including sales taxes on her
materials, it's often not worth it to get a tax number for resale items,
it causes the taxing authority to take a closer look at you which can
lead to all kinds of fun. I can easily see paying that much in Taxes.
Now her equipment costs seem a bit high. But then again I'm cheap.
On 1/28/2012 2:59 PM, John Francis wrote:
On Sat, Jan 28, 2012 at 02:24:11PM -0500, Paul Stenquist wrote:
She's also entering some of her living expenses, which is a bit odd . . .
More than simply "a bit odd".
She assigns costs for her house and car over the full year, rather
than for just the four months she claims is her working season.
She also claims a tax bill of $15,000 on income of $50,000, which
suggests she needs a better tax attorney - many of the charges
detailed (and already counted in the balance sheet) can be offset
against taxable income, which should reduce that total considerably.
I'm not saying that she's charging too much - just that the figures
presented to "justify" that charge don't hold water. Far better to
simply say "I charge that much because that's a fair market price for
what I offer - if you can find a deal you like better, take it".
[Personally, I wouldn't want to shoot weddings as a way of earning
money. I've done a couple of low-key events for friends& family,
but never as principal photographer at a formal wedding]
--
Don't lose heart! They might want to cut it out, and they'll want to avoid a
lengthily search.
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