Please stay with me, this may get winded.
I am going to be shooting player and team photos for a local youth football organization. This will be my first time getting paid for my photos. I have a smugmug account setup and have sold a few prints already on there. The nice thing is that smugmug collects sales tax and pays sales tax to my state for me. My concern is that providing parents only a link to my smugmug site may not be the best way to get the most sales. My guess would be that providing some basic packages to purchase up front, and then additional options via the smugmug site later might produce the most sales. That being said, I know that I will need to collect sales tax on the upfront sales.
I don't plan on quitting my day job anytime soon, so I don't know what info is needed when filing a tax return in the spring. I do know that having all the info set and in place now will make things easier later down the road. At what point do I full out report it as a business vs additional income that isn't reported on a w2 form? My short term goal is to break even on my smugmug hosting, business cards, and Lightroom Purchase. If I can go above and beyond that it would be awesome.
Any info on this would be appreciated.
Thank You!!
Shawn Taylor
TPSphotos.com