maybe they all joined the PPA and finally figured out that running a microstock image factory has the highest expenses and bottom of the barrel profits compared to all the "non-celebrity-status" fields of professional photography. So now they are going to focus on the general public and make irregular uploads to micro simply for the fact that it allows a portrait studio the opportunity to generate and justify an insane amount of tax deductions on things that normally could not be classified as an expense for a portrait business.  ... That would be the smart thing to do from a financial viewpoint.

Deduct what exactly?

Anything appearing in a stock photo 

the best deductions that you can add to your studio from micro are travel related expenses that would not normally be associated with your regular business practice like hotels, extended mileage and all the stuff on the way like food, drinks, etc. Simply running the studio you will also have mileage, etc. but it will for the most part be localized. Now add in the micro accounts and you can now count that as an extension to your studio.
So let's say my wife and I just dropped the kids off to spend the weekend at the grandparents .. we're driving in the car and I say "hey we don't have any appointments this weekend let's head out to the rockies" ... we stop by the house, grab some clothes .. and the camera bags of course (it's a business trip after all) . 10 hours later we're in Denver and ready for a weekend of fun shooting. Come home upload a few shots and now we have another 3,000 miles to throw in the books .. plus hotels receipts, restaurant receipts and a few souvenirs that we will use for props in something or other. The deduction for mileage is rated pretty high in the US .. so in a few days we could easily make the total deductions for that expedition come up to 5 times the actual cost of the trip.
Now you have tons of additional deductions that can offset the fact that you are making 2000-5000% profits per client with the portrait end .. lower your income (on paper) and the best part is you put little work into a huge return vs. a ton of work into a small return.
Basically micro could fall completely in the crapper but I'd still upload here and there simply because I profited so much in the long run by claiming it as a loss.

Corporations do this all the time. It's not uncommon for a manufacturer to keep a crap factory in operation simply so they can claim it as a loss every year to offset the primary plant ... same principle .. microstock is the crap factory you keep in operation.

Quote from: rene on April 14, 2010, 20:43

Strange thing, this month big "guns" (Yuri, Iofoto, Monkeybusiness) have not any uploads at Dreamstime. Usually they upload hundreds/thousands files. Are they preparing something? (boycotting new uploads limits or going exclusive)

Interesting, good observation

Yes, it looks like the what-will-yuri-do six month clock has started ticking ... September will be an interesting month. That he has cohorts will make it doubly so - heads up all you lifestyle shooters!

He's uploaded to istock on April 5th. And he's been uploading video there.

.

Andresr is still uploading but I think he is not very concentrated on this task. Take a look on titles and keywords of his last images (especially the reading man)

Hey Rene, thanks for pointing out. I just fixed some will fix the others later because there were too many mistakes. It was in the actual uploads the mistake rather than the embedded keywords ..... one uploader less at the company and  thanks to your remark as I found tons of mistakes everywhere made by him.

this is all really interesting and thanx for the tax tips on tax day. 

but, er, have you ever been audited? as an individual or company? 

I agree with Randy that most countries have a 'base rate' that you can claim for vehicle expenses if you don't want (or can't)  log actual expenses.  Sometimes there is stipulations weather you have to log actual expenses and miles used for private / work or when you can just claim the fixed rate.

That said, your vehicle expenses are a lot more than just gas.  You are also racking up more miles on your vehicle which is lowering the resale value, using the engine which will require repair, tires, oil, insurance, etc.etc.  I don't actually think the fixed rate is so far off what it really costs - of course it depends on what vehicle you are driving and I agree with Randy that if you are driving a very cheap vehicle you will probably end up on the plus side.

Confused... rene starts the thread talking about uploads by the �big guns� and soon everyone is talking about tax! 

Also called getting off topic. And I for one lose interest in the entire thread. The TAX posts should be cut and pasted into a new thread. That way the original post could be commented on.

My 2 cents.

-Larry

Quote from: rene on April 15, 2010, 03:33

Andresr is still uploading but I think he is not very concentrated on this task. Take a look on titles and keywords of his last images (especially the reading man)

Hey Rene, thanks for pointing out. I just fixed some will fix the others later because there were too many mistakes. It was in the actual uploads the mistake rather than the embedded keywords ..... one uploader less at the company and  thanks to your remark as I found tons of mistakes everywhere made by him.

You are lucky, I was tempted by 0.02$ prime but I was in a good mood. 
Funny that after all this "flagging campaign" DT's reviewers still don't do their work correctly.

This can't be good for DT.  Would be nice to know the reasons why these people are no longer uploading and if DT care?  Surely not having those people on board is going to lose them business?  Other contributors might give up on them and buyers might look elsewhere for all those missing images.  

I sometimes get annoyed that they reject images that sell on other sites, they seem to want higher quality to sell as subs and that wont work, see what has happened to crestock.  Their similars rejections can also get tedious, letting the buyers decide what they want is sensible, not leaving it to the reviewers.

I might consider giving them higher quality images for higher commissions and if I could opt them out of subs but they are not offering us that.  Something is going to have to change or I don't like the future for DT.