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Messages - KiwiRob

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1
iStockPhoto.com / Deactivating an image
« on: May 08, 2012, 11:57 »
I've been contacted by an airline who wish to purchase the rights to one of my images for 12 months, this image is on istock, so can I deactivate an image then reactivate it after 12 months are up, or does it have to go through the approval process again?

2
123RF / Re: Are 123 screwing us ?!!
« on: September 14, 2009, 11:43 »
I've never had a problem with this site until today, all sales from May, July and September have been cancelled and my account has a negitave balance. I've sent an email so maybe I'll hear something from them, maybe not if what other has said about customer support is true.

3
Hi guys. I've been skimming this thread (it's a lengthy one) and there's something I don't quite understand. As far as I can tell this 30% tax only applies if you don't file the proper paperwork, is that right? And I do understand that filing such paperwork can be a hassle, but it also sounds like it can be done via mail to the IRS. Is that right?

If that is true, then why is this such a big deal? I know I won't win any popularity contests with that sort of question in this thread, but really I'm just trying to get my head around this issue. The amount of fury and anger directed at SS for this new policy would make it seem as though this 30% tax was unavoidable, yet from what I'm reading it sounds like it's just a matter of doing a little paperwork to get around it.

What am I missing here?




it's a little paperwork which actually costs a lot of money, this little piece of paperwork will only help some contributorrs ie those living in countries with a tax treaty with the US, all those that don't get hit with 30% regardless of weither they fill out the form or not, then those poor sods will get hit with there own tax, so in essence these folks will only earn 22 cents per image less local tax, kinda makes working for SS pointless if you live in a non tax treaty country.

Note you only pay the 30% tax if the image was purchased by a US entity, but since most of the sales are to US entities you're still screwed out of a lot of income.

4
I don't see any of the large portfolios complaining about this.  And they have the most to lose financially from this.  Why is that?  Where is the complaining from the top portfolios in the world (Mr. Arcurs, or Ms. Pargeter, or Andresr, etc. etc.)?  They stand to lose large sums of money from all of this.  Yet are they moaning about this on the forums?


Ah but it isn't going to be a problem for Mr Arcurs because he is a tax citizen of Denmark which has a tax treaty with the US so he won't get pinged, plus his business is large enough to justy the time and hassle of getting this sorted out, he probably has an accountant all over it already. It's the guys with large portfolios in non tax treaty countries who will probably make a silent protest and bugger off. Me I don't care, one way or other, I just think SS haven't handled the situation in a very professional manner, the CEO has acted like a big baby which didn't help at all. The US can have my $10 a month tax, I hope they use it wisely and don't spend it on anything stupid.

5

I'm sure there are differences between the requirements of Revenue Canada and the IRS, but I'm not an expert.

And regarding tax havens, when people say "off-shore", I had a feeling they were talking about small Caribbean islands, not Switzerland or Ireland. But maybe I'm wrong about that.
[/quote]

I was thinking anywhere other than in the US, Canada is probably a good choice, as people have said IS doesn't have this problem, they are in Canada, Canada is probably a nicer place to live than the US, Jon might be happier there and less prone to emotional outbursts. ;D

6
I'm actually surprised more people weren't banned.  The level of outrage over something SS has no control over, plus the ensuing misinformation that was being spread, was pretty ridiculous and very unprofessional on the part of some of the contributors.  Thank goodness calmer heads prevailed over here at Microstockgroup where accurate information can be shared. 

SS do have control over it, Jon could move the company offshore like all his competition, then the problem would go away. This issus is probably the reason why the majority of MS agencies aren't located in the US. You have to feel for those who live in non treaty countries, loosing 30% of bugger all really would make one question the worth of joing SS.

From what i gather, and to the best of my knowledge of the information available, and conceding that i may be incorrect.... SS have confirmed in their forum that they are not considering the option of opening an offshore office. However, please check SS official policy with regard to this - I cannot make claims about the factual accuracy of this information.
Hi Lucy, sorry to see you were silenced at SS Is that permanent?

Yes, I read somewhere that SS won't be setting up off-shore offices. The problem is, if the IRS perceives that a new office was set up to avoid taxation, they will charge SS with tax evasion. Which would probably put SS out of business. If SS had opened an office somewhere else BEFORE all this mess, then it would not have the "appearance" of evading taxes. But it's too late now.

That's not smart business, they will probably loose all their non tax treaty submitters, who want's to work for maybe 12-15 cents an image, it wouldn't be tax evasion it would be moving the business offshore like a number of other internet companies have done in recent years for this very reason, he could even shift to Canada and have parties with the boys and girls at IS. SS should have been made aware of this issue when they started up, it's just incompetance on the behalf of their tax advisers that this was missed.

7
I never said it's Jons fault, same as I never said it's the IRS's fault, I believe that Jon and SS could have managed this much better than they have, in fact they have really cocked the whole thing up, firstly they supplied the wrong information, then Jon gets all crappy on the boards, now we finally know the facts, it's still going to double tax a whole heap of members, had SS been smart they would have set up an offshore company to deal with people who are going to be affected, but no they weren't that clever, now they run the risk of loosing a lot of images and sales.

Like many have said it's not a difficult problem for them to solve and they should have seen it coming.

8
Jon isn't that smart ...

Huh? When was the last time you built a $50M+ per year business from scratch in under 5 years?

Yeah.  Wow.  Totally uncalled for. 

Fact is that Jon has managed to run his business quite successfully, and with a minimum of drama and aggravation for everyone, including buyers and submitters. 

This is the first time in years I can remember a dustup at Shutterstock, and it isn't even their doing, but something externally imposed by the IRS. 

If you ask me it is the IRS (actually congress) that should rethink policies that push successful US businesses offshore. 

This is not the fault of the IRS, they are just doing their job, which is collecting tax. Other agencies know about it, so for the life of me I don't understand why SS didn't for all this time. 

This is an SS cock-up pure and simple, their tax lawyer or tax accountant should have let them know when the business was started. Jon/SS haven't been very smart, they should have known about this situation a long time ago which obviously they didn't, so in theory SS has been paying submitters illegially which has now jumped up and bit them and us on the arse.

There are a significant number of Eastern European contributors who will be hammered by the 30% tax, if I was in this boat I would say goodbye SS, now if SS were smart they would open an overseas office and make the effort to keep these photographers happy. Opening this office could have happened quite easily with a minimum of fuss, SS has made a hash of this. Plus Jon's outbursts on the SS forum also haven't helped matters either.

9
I'm actually surprised more people weren't banned.  The level of outrage over something SS has no control over, plus the ensuing misinformation that was being spread, was pretty ridiculous and very unprofessional on the part of some of the contributors.  Thank goodness calmer heads prevailed over here at Microstockgroup where accurate information can be shared. 

SS do have control over it, Jon could move the company offshore like all his competition, then the problem would go away. This issus is probably the reason why the majority of MS agencies aren't located in the US. You have to feel for those who live in non treaty countries, loosing 30% of bugger all really would make one question the worth of joing SS.

10
I think istock would make sure they pay people through their Canadian finance offices, to get around this.  I can't understand why shutterstock don't move their finances outside the US.  It seems every other big internet company has done that with no problems, so why can't SS?  Google, Facebook, Yahoo!, e-bay,Amazon and many more are located in Ireland, I wonder why :)

Jon isn't that smart, I feel confident that a significant number of his non US based submitters will fly the coop.

11
Non US contributors are great majority of all contributors. 

I also believe that the vast majority of buyers are also from the US, most of my sales from all the sites I belong to come within the US work day, not the European.

12
Yeah, it sucks for non-US contributors, but...it's the cost of doing business.

But SS could absorb the tax themselves, I'm sure Jon probably hasn't realised how many cointributors are going to pull their portfolios and leave, a lot of people will not provide personal info to the US govt and those that live in countries without a tax treaty will be double taxed so why would they keep submitting, new submitters will also think twice before joining.

Jon should use his head and incorporate SS in another country.

13
No downloads in over a week, this is the first time a best match change has effected me. Last month was my second best this year. Looks like I'll have to go take some photos, I haven't uploaded anything in over a year.

14
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Subscriptions at IStock...
« on: April 04, 2008, 02:47 »
Will this lead to SS offering single photo sales?

I bloody well hope so!

15
I wonder what the MS haters will say about this.

16
All,

A heads up to everyone it appears that "Attila the Reviewer" has surfaced at BigStockPhoto (BigStock). It has been seven days since my last approval (1) and 29 rejections since then. Hell ... even God rested on the 7th day.

Mark


Not wishing to sound rude but maybe the photos were crap and just not good enough. There is always a reason why something is rejected and it's not always the reviewer.

17
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Marmion on iStock
« on: March 28, 2008, 04:49 »
Here's an obvious question why would a diamond contributor choose to leave IS or if they were given the boot why would IS can such a great portfolio which had images that sold really well?

18
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Inspector's monitor choice
« on: February 25, 2008, 03:58 »
I bet the IS inspectors (and probably all inspectors on ms sites) don't even have to calibrate their monitors.

19
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Ooops, suspended from the forum!
« on: February 25, 2008, 03:56 »
What I think is happening at IS is due to them being more successful than Getty, photographers/managers at Getty are getting nervous and upset that IS is taking away some of there earning potential so IS has been told to something about it, the stupid thing about this is IS can't influence sales on any other MS sites except there own. From all I have read and from personal experience is that sales at IS have tanked in the past month and they are nervous.

Has anyone also noticed how long it's now taking to get a payout from IS, I've been waiting 12 days so far, maybe they are having cashflow issues.

20
iStockPhoto.com / Re: Prices reduced......
« on: February 25, 2008, 03:44 »
I don't mind the reduction in prices if it helps my images start selling again, since the massive price increase I have sold 50% less images in the past two months than I normally would. The price increase was a big step to far IMO.

21
187

total 28125

22
Shutterstock.com / Re: $1000 images on shutterstock
« on: February 15, 2008, 08:40 »
I have $948.85 to go before my best selling image hit's $1000, at IS I have $863.46 to go. The SS image has sold more than double the IS image.

23
iStockPhoto.com / Re: More evidence that IS favors Exclusives
« on: February 15, 2008, 08:33 »
What I've learnt from this post is that I need to take some photos of cheasy looking business people if I ever want to make any money from microstock.

24
Go on buy a lecia M8  ;D

25
Cameras / Lenses / Re: Need help with camera choice!
« on: February 15, 2008, 08:22 »

First up I don't see how you can make your first statement, please gives reasons why the 5D is the best microstock camera, is it just because you have one. There are many cameras it's equal and quite a few which are better.

which cameras would you recommend then?


I wouldn't recommend any, I'm not an expert on cameras. I think the best camera for stock is the one you have in your hot grubby little hands, anything that can take a photo which is accepted and sells has to be a good camera for stock, in that respect a 5D is no better or worse than any other camera.

I don't think a person can call the 5D or any other camera for that matter the best camera for stock without providing some justification.

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