Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2003/10/10
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Eric, Ted, Mark and everyone else that has offered an answer.....thanks so much. While not a tax attorney I have been preparing close to 500 returns a year for the past 14 years. I spend maybe another 100 hours a year in the classroom both teaching and studying. Occasionally something new pops up as is the case with my friend. In the IRS eyes your personal labor is of no value...So if my client controlled the entire process from putting the film in his camera to drying the final prints his only deduction would be the cost of materials. On the other hand if he pays someone to do all the developing, cropping, enlarging printing...the cost of their labor and materials is deductible. We made a "low-ball" estimate for replacement cost. In dealing with the IRS it is always prudent to go to the lowest reasonable amount. The IRS puts no value on a body of work that my friend spent 25 years of his life assembling..It is an entirely different issue if his portfolio had a collectors value, ie..if my client/friend was HCB, McCurry, Ted or any of several others on this site. I spoke with my friend about an hour ago (he is somewhere between Omaha & Bismarck at the moment) and gave him a brief consensus of opinions expressed on the LUG...he's happy with the deduction we took, briefly mentioning that most his images had been copyrighted. Thanks again and any further input would be appreciated...Jon - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html