I hear you Robert. Here in Nova Scotia I am allowed $30,000 a year in gross
sales before charging sales tax (pardon me for laughing this hard). On the
other hand I have to pay the tax on materials I buy for this hobby/business.
It is worth it not to have to collect or declare tax. On the other hand I
declare every penny made to the tax department. It is worth it not only to
behonest but also to prevent them taking a dislike to me. I find the tax
folks extremely fair, but they expect us to pay the taxes if we owe them.

--
God bless and safe turning
Darrell Feltmate
Truro, NS Canada
http://aroundthewoods.com
http://roundopinions.blogspot.com
wrote in message
...
On Feb 15, 9:35 am, "Darrell Feltmate"
wrote:

Not me for one.

Nor myself. For me, wood turning gives me a creative outlet, and is
another tool in the shop. I can get on a roll and make a lot of
different things in high volume from time to time, but regular work
takes precedence. I make enough money to pay for materials and some
nice tools, but that is about it. My goal is $1K a year gross, that's
it.

It amazes me to see the huge number of folks who sell a few pens at a
craft
market and assume they can now go full time.

And you would be surprised how that translates across the crafts and
trades. If I had a nickel for every trim carpenter that I trained to
put up ceiling molding, make and hang cabinets, to hang and trim
doors, etc., that went out on his own and called later asking for
their job back, I would retire.

Folks don't do enough research about their own bills and what it takes
for them to survive. They don't include the simplest of things like
gas and transportation, rain days, or worse, quarterly deposits on
self employment taxes.

We have a couple of older fellows in our woodturning club that have
made the jump to self employment (I might add here they were quite
smug) and promptly had their feelings hurt so badly that they almost
quit turning altogether. They go the meetings now to see their
friends, not relate the stories of being shown in a gallery or the
travails of being shown properly as an artist, etc.

Sure, they sold an occasional piece, but never factored their
"art" like this:

Sales price: $900 for an American Indian water jug
(Yippee!!!)

Gallery takes 40%

Cost of large solid blank for 12" vessel: $125

Transportation to the gallery in Colorado (stuff like that won't sell
here in S. Texas) with adds for weight and insurance: $70, including
supervised packing with proper materials

Gas to pick up blank, + gas to take to shipper: $20

Wear on tools (no factor for investment in lathe, tools, and bit -
this would cause tears): $10

Power for lathe (he reports 40 hours of turning and a few more in
finishing, plus about three more for buffing): $10

Sandpaper, finish materials, buff compounds: $10

You now have $295. Take out your tax burden of about 35% for all of
it (remember, as a self employed you have to pay all the taxes, no
matching from your employer) and you have about $192 left.

He told me that he could turn one out in a week, but really it was
about 55 hours when all said and done. ($192 / 55 hours.... ouch...)

The worst part for him was he knew how much all his family and friends
loved his work, so he was ready for success. He never figured that
that the gallery wouldn't absolutely sell them as fast as he could
turn them out.

In his mind, if he kept to the stone he could sell 4 a month, every
month, making him a hefty profit. The gallery sold one or two a
month, and sometimes none when the touristas weren't there.

They both tried other galleries. They both had the same results.
They both no longer sell their work. They were smart and got out
before the IRS got to them for improper payment of taxes and before
the state got to them for not charging sales tax for items sold
through friends and out of their garages under their respective
company names.

Talk about a great way to ruin a hobby!

Robert