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Author Topic: Open letter to Fotolia: What's going on here?  (Read 12438 times)

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« Reply #25 on: February 24, 2014, 08:54 »
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I mostly ignore 1099s. I don't care what these companies claim to have paid me. I know what I received, so that's what I report. 1099s are kind of a joke really.

PayPal gives them out, which is still mystifying to me. PayPal doesn't pay me. Shutterstock, Fotolia, Dreamstime, etc., they pay me. PayPal is just the means through which payment is made. No idea how PayPal reports having paid me anything. So I just ignore the 1099. I seriously never even look at it.

You're braver than me.  I always pay attention to the 1099s, since thats the amount that has been reported to the IRS.  If there's any discrepency between my numbers and the 1099 number, I want to get to the bottom of it.

if all your income is reported thru 1099s, then  there could be questions if you report income less than the 1099 total; but as others have said, if you work on a cash basis, those numbers don't have to match up. 

if you have non 1099 income - eg, direct sales, ebay, amazon, etc, then your 1099 forms will be well under your total income reported.  as others have said - I just file the 1099's, but don't use them in actual tax preparation

I do have income other than shown on 1099s, of course, but still want to receive 1099s that are accurate.  Particularly last year when I also got 1099s from Paypal, which were redundant of some of the microstock ones. 

It just seems to me to be good accounting to make sure everything is reported accurately, and AFAIK you have to mail in the 1099s with your tax return (or separately if you e-file).  Has my accountant misinformed me?  Do you not have to send in the 1099s to the IRS when you do your taxes?

I believe that the agencies already do that, Lisa.  And your tax return should itemize each agency separately and show their 1099 amount.  That's how mine work, anyway.  A couple of years ago, Dreamstime put my income in the wrong box on my 1099 and my accountant put it in the right box.  IRS saw the discrepancy and BAM!.  The IRS audited me. While it was eventually resolved, we never mailed 1099's to the IRS, the agencies do in some way. You just need to make sure each 1099 is identified on your return individually so they can verify you are claiming that specific income.


lisafx

« Reply #26 on: February 24, 2014, 14:10 »
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I believe that the agencies already do that, Lisa.  And your tax return should itemize each agency separately and show their 1099 amount.  That's how mine work, anyway.  A couple of years ago, Dreamstime put my income in the wrong box on my 1099 and my accountant put it in the right box.  IRS saw the discrepancy and BAM!.  The IRS audited me. While it was eventually resolved, we never mailed 1099's to the IRS, the agencies do in some way. You just need to make sure each 1099 is identified on your return individually so they can verify you are claiming that specific income.

Thanks for the detailed explanation.  Sounds like you are kind of proving my original point about having your own reported income from the agencies match the 1099s exactly (or else the audit, like you experienced).   

« Reply #27 on: February 24, 2014, 21:54 »
+1
I believe that the agencies already do that, Lisa.  And your tax return should itemize each agency separately and show their 1099 amount.  That's how mine work, anyway.  A couple of years ago, Dreamstime put my income in the wrong box on my 1099 and my accountant put it in the right box.  IRS saw the discrepancy and BAM!.  The IRS audited me. While it was eventually resolved, we never mailed 1099's to the IRS, the agencies do in some way. You just need to make sure each 1099 is identified on your return individually so they can verify you are claiming that specific income.

Thanks for the detailed explanation.  Sounds like you are kind of proving my original point about having your own reported income from the agencies match the 1099s exactly (or else the audit, like you experienced).

Yea I put on the amount that's listed on the 1099. I just think it's safer that way.

« Reply #28 on: February 26, 2014, 15:46 »
+1
I wanted to get back to the root of this thread. Here in the U.S. if you earn money by working in Dec. of one year, but do not receive that money (either as a credit on your bank statement or as cash in hand) until the next year, that income (money) is reported for the year in which you receive the income, not in the year in which you earned it.

Based on that principal, if Fotolia is reporting that I "earned" income in a particular year, but I have not "received" that income in the form of cash or as an addition to my bank statement, than Fotolia is making an error in it's tax reporting.

If Fotolia is incorrectly reporting payouts of contributors, then they will be the ones in trouble with the tax authority (IRS).

Fotolia is going to get shut down because they are misreporting contributor's earnings. It may take a few years, but the IRS is sure to check their records, and when there is absolutely no record of any payments made to contributors, but Fotolia is reporting that contributors have been paid and issued 1099 Forms, somebody will have to answer for IRS reporting errors. 

marthamarks

« Reply #29 on: February 26, 2014, 17:27 »
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I wanted to get back to the root of this thread. Here in the U.S. if you earn money by working in Dec. of one year, but do not receive that money (either as a credit on your bank statement or as cash in hand) until the next year, that income (money) is reported for the year in which you receive the income, not in the year in which you earned it.

Thanks, Stockboy, for going back to the root of the thread, which I started, and for your accurate interpretation of the situation in the USA.

Just today, my husband and I filed our tax return. I did (incorrectly!) report income from FT of $12.50, per FT's "corrected" 1099 statement, but only because it's such a little amount that I didn't figure it was worth getting into a wrangle with the IRS about it. But yes, it does stick in my craw to be forced to say I earned something, no matter how small, in a year when I received nothing whatsoever from that company.

I am verrrry happy to have FT out of my life.   ;D   

And as promised earlier, I'll come back to this thread to report if I ever actually receive any $$ from FT.

marthamarks

« Reply #30 on: February 26, 2014, 17:59 »
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Hey!!! Miracles do happen. My Paypal account just now reported an $11.00 payment from Fotolia.

So, they withheld a nice round $1.50. But that's okay. I got paid and I got out. What's not to like?

« Reply #31 on: March 07, 2014, 03:39 »
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As a relatively new contributor to microstock in general I'm confused

I've been reading threads of people abandoning fotolia due to multiple reasons

the lovely people at fotolia have rejected every single image I sent and listed everything and the kitchen sink as the reason

But the poll results show that fotolia is a top tier earner so should be worth getting into

should I even be trying to get into fotolia?

Carl

  • Carl Stewart, CS Productions
« Reply #32 on: March 07, 2014, 07:23 »
+1
As a relatively new contributor to microstock in general I'm confused

I've been reading threads of people abandoning fotolia due to multiple reasons

the lovely people at fotolia have rejected every single image I sent and listed everything and the kitchen sink as the reason

But the poll results show that fotolia is a top tier earner so should be worth getting into

should I even be trying to get into fotolia?

A chronology of my experience with Fotolia:

+ A pregnant model shot with me and signed a model release in exchange for free maternity photos.

+ A couple of years or so later, she changes her mind, asking me to remove her pictures from all of the stock sites.  Refuses to reimburse me.  I refuse to remove the pictures.

+ The model contacts the stock sites.  All of them except Fotolia refer her to me, since I uploaded a signed and witnessed model release.  Fotolia blocks my entire account.  (Bear in mind that once photos are uploaded to Fotolia and submitted, they cannot be edited, nor can they be deleted, by the contributor.)

+ I ask if they can remove the pictures of the model in question and unblock my account.  They say no.

+ I then ask to close my account and deposit the amount due into my paypal account.

+ I get a system email from them saying that I have a message waiting for me, and directing me to log on to my account in order to read the message.

+ I try to log on to my account, but the system no longer recognizes an account with that user name and password.  Apparently, they've closed my account, which means I'm unable to read their message.

So if you wish to do business with that kind of mentality, be my guest.   And good luck.  :P

« Reply #33 on: March 07, 2014, 07:44 »
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+ The model contacts the stock sites.  All of them except Fotolia refer her to me, since I uploaded a signed and witnessed model release.  Fotolia blocks my entire account.  (Bear in mind that once photos are uploaded to Fotolia and submitted, they cannot be edited, nor can they be deleted, by the contributor.)

Carl - You are right about the images being non-editable. But, I was able to delete images in the past. Is this a new change in FT ?

Carl

  • Carl Stewart, CS Productions
« Reply #34 on: March 07, 2014, 15:57 »
+1
I'm not sure.  It's been quite a while since I was on the site, but I recall seeing no mechanism for editing or deleting photos.  The larger issue, though is that a model requested that images of her be removed, regardless of the fact that I uploaded a valid, signed and witnessed released, which they even acknowledged.  Nevertheless, instead of removing those specific images, they chose to block my entire account.  Had they been a high earner for me, I would have been severely impacted by their lunacy.  Not worth the risk, if you ask me.

OM

« Reply #35 on: March 08, 2014, 19:09 »
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Shocking behaviour indeed by FT but I have always been able to delete images at FT by clicking on 'My Files' and then on the right hand side of each file there's 'View Information-Edit Data-Delete'.

You can't edit much but you can delete the file.


 

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