TPS-TIE

Pure mortgage broker: A pure mortgage broker (PMB) acts solely as a broker. A PMB meets with a potential borrower and gets their financial information. The borrower deposits funds with the PMB to pay third-party costs. This money is placed in a trust account. After getting the necessary information from the potential borrower, the PMB prepares the loan application and “shops” the application with potential lenders. If the application is accepted by a lender and the loan closes, the PMB receives a fee for these services.

Business and Occupation Tax: Washington's business and occupation (B&O) tax is levied on a business’s gross receipts or gross income, without any deduction for costs of labor, materials, business taxes, or other costs of doing business, unless a valid exemption or deduction applies. This is different from an income tax which is applied to the net income of the business after deducting business costs.

Determining the correct local sales tax rate for sales of photographs

Sales of photos are sourced to the location where the customer receives the photo (i.e., the electronic file) if that location is known. Thus a photo received by a customer in Seattle would be sourced to Seattle (location code 1726), and taxed at Seattle’s sales tax rate.

Photographers are the consumers of equipment and supplies used in conducting their business, and must pay sales tax when purchasing these items. The photographer must pay deferred sales or use tax on the item if sales tax was not paid at the time of purchase. An example of when this can happen is when the photographer purchases equipment from an out of state vendor that does not collect sales tax from Washington customers.
Examples of equipment and supplies upon which the photographer must pay sales tax include:

Washington State law generally treats digital photographs and tangible photographs (i.e., prints or photo files delivered on CD) in the same manner for tax purposes.

Digital photographs are considered digital goods when transferred electronically. "Digital goods" means sounds, images, data, facts, or information, or any combination thereof, transferred electronically. Sales of digital photographs are subject to Retailing B&O tax and retail sales tax.

Sitting Fees (includes “session fees,” “shooting fees,” etc.)

Photographers sometimes charge a separate sitting fee to their customers. This fee may also be referred to as a session fee, shooting fee, etc. For purposes of this guide we will use the term “sitting fee” when referring to these charges.

Photographers who take portraits and sell the photos to their customers are generally required to collect sales tax from the customer on all charges, including sitting fees, travel reimbursements, touch up fees, and any other cost passed on to the customer. This is true whether the portraits are delivered as finished prints, are made available for download from a server, or are delivered to the customer on a CD or other tangible medium.

A photographer may contract with a third party to provide prints or image files to the customer. Two common arrangements are as follows:

Event photographers are contracted to take photographs by the event, such as weddings, birthday parties, etc. A typical contract might include:

• Shooting fees
• Travel expenses
• Charges for the photos themselves
• Related, miscellaneous expenses

Business and Occupation Tax: Event photographers report their gross income under the Retailing B&O classification when selling photographs to the end user.