I'm ready to order about 8600US worth of equipment, but B&H and Adorama are closed for Jewish Holiday Season untill the 28th of April.

Anyone have any options for a reputable online store that carries the 1DS MKIII, Heavy Duty Swivel Mount and small Multidone by Photoflex, a Canon 1.4 teleconverter, etc?

UPDATE:

I can't get the "L" bracket for the MKIII untill May first anyway, from Really Right Stuff. It's back ordered.

I may go ahead and buy teh camera from one of the places you all recommended below though. It will give me time to get familiar with it shooting off tripod.

And to answer on person's comment that I don't need it that fast, you are right. I don't need it at all. I could use my film camera for that matter and drum scan everything in.

However, why wait a week when I could get it a week earlier and have that time to become familiar with it and start making images with it?

Anyway, I didn't ask why I should wait a week or not. I was simply asking for options.

Calumet is my first choice when B&H and Adorama are out of stock.

I purchased my Canon 1Ds MkII from Roberts Imaging in Indiana. Their service and prices are very good. www.robertsimaging.com

Good luck.

Bud James

I have had good experiences with J&R

I've no idea if they have what you are looking for but Amazon either carries a lot of stuff or has partner stores that do. Worth a check.

How about waiting a week till they are open again. Is getting this equipment that much of an emergency that you need it tomorrow?

It's only a week.. I'm sure you have waited a week for other things before.

Relax, have a couple cups of coffee, the end of the world is not till sometime in late May (unless you know something we don't!). Plenty of time to get the equipment from B&H and still be ready to shoot the conflagration.

Sheeesh!

Why wait?

Unique Photo in NJ I have had good luck with. They don't have the stock that B&H has however but might have what you want.

I would look at www.allenscamera.com , the owner, Allen Leichter is very highly regarded. I've bought all my gear from him.

s.

I actually have been trying to put together my order on Amazon, thanks.

Since I can't get the "L" bracket from RSS until May 1st--back ordered--I'll probably do that.

Samy's Camera in Los Angeles is one of the largest dealers in the country.

Oh yes! I forgot about that, but I want to buy outside of CA, which is where I live, to avoid the 7.25+ sales tax, which will be around 600.00 US. That's a substantial amount!

You might consider Kirk for an L bracket. Dunno if they make the one you want, tho.

It's for the BH55 Really Right Stuff Ball Head plate.

The B.O.E. is pretty serious about collecting sales tax on things you buy out of state (it's the second line on the return). They find the one receipt that shows that you did not pay that 600 bucks to them last quarter, multiply it buy the last 8 quarters (cause they don't want to go through every receipt for the last two years, so lets just assume you under reported you taxes due by that much each quater), and bill you 4800.00 + fines + interest.

Why are people so full of certitude theyse days?

In California, unless an online business has a physical store in its state, you're excluded from paying sales tax, just as the business is from charging it.

http://www.inc.com/resources/tax/articles/...1/bweltman.html

Myth #1: Sales tax depends only on the location of the buyer.

Reality: Sales tax collection is based on whether a seller has a physical presence within a state. Usually, this means having an office, store, factory or other facility. But physical presence can also result when a business sends a sales force into a state or otherwise has a "nexus" or contact with that state.

Once a business determines which state or states it has a physical presence in, then it must collect sales tax for sales to customers within each state.

---

I think what you have in mind is a reseller license for products sold BACK to the public. Now you do have to charge sales tax and pay that to the State of California each quarter--or do you? Nope.

If you don't have a reseller's license, you pay the sales tax when YOU buy the product for resale. That means you have already paid the sales tax. Moreover, if you do not have a reseller's license, the BOE has no way of knowing that you are a reseller, and no way of knowing you are reselling. The California State Franchise Tax Board is a separate entity, and if they investigated you then they could asses your situation at that time, but would not audit you for reseller problems. It would need to be something else.

How do I know this? I do my research and I have a friend who got audited every year by the CA Franchise Tax board. He got audited because he had a side business that was more of a hobby, but he still showed a profit--which means he wasn't doing anything illegal. However, the Board told him the reason he was being audited was because he wasn't showing "enough" profit for a "reseller" of goods--I think they wanted to see 30% profit on the parts he was buying, which was for computers. What he was doing was building computers for people to the tone of about 40,000US each year, but he was only charging 100-200 per computer to do it. Each computer was costing around 1500 US, so he was making roughly about 2-3 thousand each year. THAT, was a problem according to the state because to stay in business, you have to make at least around 30% as a reseller.

So what happened was that he told them there was no law requiring him to charge more for his services and he'd charge whatever he wanted. They agreed, but said be prepared to get audited every year. So, what he did--he always does his own taxes and is very good at it--was to make sure that when he got audited, being the smart ass he is, was to make sure he under-reported his write offs so that when the board would reassess his taxes bu auditing him each year, they would owe him 200US.

So for the next three years, he would go to the audit and they would tell him, "Yes, Robert, you're withing you rights here and your taxes are perfect, with one exception--we owe you 200 dollars." After three years of proving his point to them, he decided he'd had enough. To get the board off his ass, he dropped his resellers license and never got audited again. He just paid the tax when he bought the parts and passed the expense on to the customer, as you do anyway. The point is that having the resellers license was what caused a flag to go up with the Franchise Tax Board. No reseller's license, no audit.

So you might think, "Wow, that's pretty clever." And you'd be right because we have both been social engineering corporations and government to get what we think is fair since we were first interested in computers 20+ years ago. Where computers come in is that they allowed us, and many others, to expertly hone their skills of social engineering by indirect contact.

And before someone says that's immoral, remember that organizations like the police, FBI, politicians, Presidents, and corporate marketers use social engineering on a daily basis to get information from people and consumers and to force compliance from them.

Turning their tactics against them is called empowerment. You just have to learn their techniques and turn them on those who invent and use them against you. We've never done anything directly illegal to get information, or run a business, and we never would. But we do and will manipulate the manipulators whenever they need it, or whenever we need something from them--or simply to teach them a lesson.

What does it take to do this? Lots and lots of time and dedication to learn the tactics, and a willingness to be extremely detail oriented and a perfectionist--since when you pull this crap you wanna make sure your ducks are in a perfect line--just as my friend showed me when he took the state to task for three years--and got money from them!

Actually, it wasn't just the computer age that allowed us to hone these skills. It was where we both worked at the time. We were both employed by a multinational oil corporation. And if anyone has ever worked in that type of environment, you learn quickly to swim or get eaten by the sharks willing to walk up your backside by lying and cheating to get what they want (It's called socio-pathology). So you either learn to cover your ass and do it well by thinking ahead, or you get eaten. One of the first things we ever did was to engineer a way to bring our section of the oil company to a stand still, because of a conflict we had with corporate management--upper management that wasn't even in our state.

It was about policy guidelines that we thought were going to set a precedence for lowering our pay and increasing our hours--which we were right about. They had previously demanded that we follow policy on the new changes! So what did we do? We didn't have a union because we were salary. We'll what we did was went to work and read every single policy book on the record for the entire company, from clerks to in house postal workers, to safety guidelines, etc. Then we assessed all of the information (I was working as an analyst at the time, so you could say the company trained me to use copy information against itself--see that's how it works!).

What we found is that workers times to complete their tasks--at the hourly level--would increase by 20-30% if they followed ALL company policies everyday, which means the company would get 20-30% less work out of them for an eight hour day. So we packaged that information up and gave the managers an ultimatum--you come back and deal with us, or we enact your policies. Think about it--We enact their own policies! I mean what could they say--"No, we want our employees to violate company policies--including safety"--which made up the lions share of the increase in work time. We got what we wanted by using their own policies against them. You might think that this type of behavior gets you in a bad situation with your bosses, and thus you don't move up. Are you kidding? My friend is now a safety manager with the same company. They WANT people like that running their business! He proved himself; he got the job. Sad yes, but true.

So anyway, just some of my thoughts so you can see I rarely leave these type of situations up to chance. Chance is a bad bad bet. Knowledge and the ability to use it--much better. The trouble is that most peple are too busy to learn these tactics and perfect them.

So anyway, no you don't have to pay taxes unless the business you buy the product from has physical presence in the state you are residing. If you buy products outside of the state for resale in the sate, you are then obligated to pay sales tax quarterly. The difference in my case is that I'm not offering the product for RESALE. I'm buying a camera for my own use--no taxes because B&H does not have a CA store.

One more bit of information that may save you some money, from the vaults of my group of friend's social engineering collection: If you buy a car in CA, and it's under 12, 000 dollars, you don't have to pay sales tax on it--IF YOU CLAIM IT WAS A GIFT! Perfectly legal. Dishonest? Yep. Illegal, nope as long as you have the paper work.

Let me give you one more: If you owe someone money and you don't want them to have to claim that money as taxable income, say they are family or something else like your girlfriend, etc, you can GIFT them the money up to 12, 000 a year. So if you gift 12K on December 29th, you can turn around and gift them 12K on January 1st for a total of 24K in less than a week and they pay NOTHING for taxes, NOR do they need to claim it on their taxes for that year, or the next one. Legal--yep. Dishonest--yep.

Again, as long as you have that paper work, your golden as far as the law goes. The state nor federal government expects to investigate these types of transactions because it is a "tax loophole." Mostly this sort of thing is a product of people with money lobbying legislators wanting to make more money w/o paying taxes--since your lifetime gifts cannot exceed 1 million dollars.

So let's say you're a wealthy family and you don't want to pay taxes on a million dollars you want to give Johnny for his High School graduation. If you are married, you can gift out 24K a year to each individual you want up to a million dollars for a lifetime. You can't give any individual more than 24K or you have to report it and incur some sort of tax (I forgot what it is called) on the amount over 24K.

So what you do is give all of your family members, and trusted wealthy friends close to your dynasty, 24K until you reach 1 million. Now they turn around and give that money to Johnny, and no one pays taxes on the 1 million--isn't that cute? (The recipient never pays money on gifts no matter how large they are). It's cute if you're wealthy and taxes don't benefit you, but not if you are poor or working class because taxes go to help you--like providing you with education.

However, us poorer people can "turn that information around" to use ourselves, but you need to be clever about how you do it--since we don't have millions to toss around. For instance, you pour that concrete driveway for your friend, and you have a legitimate concrete company, he might be so happy he wants to give you a 12K gift--which you do not have to report. In that case, you poured the driveway off the clock, and there is nothing illegal about that either. You just saved yourself paying taxes on 12K.

Anyway--

Arca plates are arca plates. I don't know who has the better design, tho.

Not sure about California, but in Arkansas I must pay sales tax no matter where I buy something just as the other guy noted - it is a new law states are using more and more to try to collect sales tax and is perfectly legit - it makes no difference where or who you buy from or what states they happen to do business in - they like to collect whenever they can, plus those penalties and interest fees too...I pay sales tax on every time I spend at B&H or Adorama - a sign of the times!

Apparently, some Arca plates don't work with RRS lever clamps...

From this page (RRS website):

NOTE ABOUT LEVER-RELEASE CLAMPS: Due to wide variations in other brands of Arca-Swiss compatible plates, we recommend using our lever-release clamps only with Really Right Stuff or Wimberley brand quick-release plates. To ensure compatibility with our lever-release clamps, we do offer a plate trade-in discount. If you already own Arca-style plates from other manufacturers (Kirk, Foba, Markins, AcraTech, Novoflex, or Arca-Swiss), we offer a $22.50 exchange discount towards purchase of a Really Right Stuff quick-release plate. Plate exchange only for identical model; you must send us your plate in advance to qualify for this discount.

In Minnesota, it's called Use Tax. You have to pay it.

Dwdallam-
Unfortunately, your certitude is 100% wrong with regard to California sales tax. I can speak from the experience of someone who has been audited by them three times.

The article you linked to is not entirely correct. Sales tax varies from state to state, but what they are talking about re: physical presence in a state is whether the seller is required to collect sales tax. If they are out of state, they do not need to collect the tax. If you, as an end user/purchaser are in California, however, it is YOUR responsibility to send the state Board of Equalization the tax ON YOUR OWN. Not all companies do this, and a great many individuals do not, but if you are ever audited they will look at every single purchase receipt on your books and make you pay the tax retroactively. It is a calculated risk you take with large purchases, but if they catch you, you will owe the tax, penalty and interest.

FYI: California determines that the tax is due when the end user takes possession of the tangible goods in California. In the case of mail order, that happens on your doorstep, not where the goods were shipped from.

The other issue with California tax is that it is called "sales and use tax", so even if you use a resale card to buy something, if it is a tool that is used to create your end product then it is classified as a tool vs. a product that can be classified for resale. Even if you do resell it, you are liable for use tax and must pay the full tax because you are using it to create something else (like a photograph).

For years, California has been clamping down on the tax collection to get as much money as possible without having to pass unpopular new laws. As the APA or ASMP can attest, photographers have been a prime target of this. Twenty years ago, much of a photographer's expenses were allowed to be left untaxed. These days, very little fits that description.

Avoid the sales tax by purchasing out of state, as many do. Just know, that you are not safe from a potential audit unless you pay tax on all purchases, in state and out.

-Ron H.

[quote=dwdallam,Apr 22 2008, 05:04 AM]
Why are people so full of certitude theyse days?

Are you a photographer with a business or just doing a hobby? Businesses are NOT Exempt from paying sales taxes on out of state purchases unless the item is to be resold or added to an item that will be sold (and sales tax collected). As someone already stated, it is generally called Use Tax - items bought tax exempt that are consumed by the business (or not re-sold but kept to be used by the business) must pay Use Tax on said items.

CA has some of the toughest laws on Sales & Use Taxes in the country. You are really playing with fire buddy.

Of course if you are just shooting as a hobby & are not running a photo business then most states aren't going to hunt you down.

Time you get some professional advice if you are running a business, 'cause it seems you know very little if anything about how to do it.

Up here in Maine, last year we had what they called an amnesty period to pay back sales/use taxes for the last 5 or 6 years. If you voluntarily sent in what you owed, they wouldn't come out and audit you. If you were sent a notice, it meant you were on a list that they would be checking to see if you responded. If they decided to audit you, they were going to go back as far as they could and charge you interest and penalties on top of the tax owed. The law had been on the books for 50 years but few paid any attention to it.

You had to actually write a 0 in the space on your tax return or else the state would estimate based on your income and bill you for sales/use tax.

The amnesty period allowed us to give it up and not be audited. Now I go ahead and give them based on purchases on my c/card statements.

On the plus side, there is a section of the state law that exempts equipment from sales tax if it is used to create photographs... cameras, lenses, darkroom equipment and now my scanner, Epson printer, my computer and monitors and such.

The state still gets money for sales/use just not on my equipment.

No problem. It's a calculated risk if made in an informed manner. CPAs certainly know the laws. I just didn't want others to assume that there were no risks in following your lead.
-Ron H.

Well, I stand corrected, I think. I'm going to ask my CPA about it and see what he says--since he has never said anything to me about my equipment and sales tax. Perhaps it's because I don't have or need a resale license? In any event, I'll find out and report back.

I guess for nonbusiness related purchases, even though you are suppose to pay it, it is unenforceable. However, I distinctly remember the law being as I linked. I wonder where that comes from?

However, I don't pay state tax either, only federal. I don't know how he has worked it out, but he's said don't worry about it.

Also, this use tax does not just apply--from what I can see--to businesses, it applies to all people for all purchases, except those exempted. The Use Tax has been on the record since 1935, the BOE says, but I don't think it applied to internet sales until recently.


I'll find out.

--I did some fast research on this and it seems that many companies have gotten caught with their proverbial pants down on this tax. If you go to the BOE website you can look at the top "Use Tax Violations" and there are some very large companies that have not yet paid their Use Tax. I mean some of them owe millions!
http://www.boe.ca.gov/cgi-bin/deliq.cgi

And you were right to do so. I'll call tomorrow and ask him.

Here in CT it's the same thing... if you pay the sales tax elsewhere you are ok but if not you owe. Many years ago I got a notice from the state about buying camera equipment from NY. I had the option to pay the tax and interest if I didn't have proof of tax payment there. If I didn't by a certain date I owed tax, interest and penalty! I think this digital online age also has advantages for the tax man!

Well at least we don't get stuck with "Excise" tax, like my friend does. He's a manufacturer of fishing equipment, very small single owner. HE has to pay all of his federal and state tax and then the feds tack on an additional 10%. It really pisses me off because for a small business owner, it's almost impossible to make 40-60K US a year and make a living.

I mean you gotta be making 100K plus, but that's like, uh, LOTS of money and hard to make that much. And if you are making that much, then your entire life seems to be "work." Not only that, but given that, tax laws seem to favor large corporations and not the small business owner. And here in the US, we don't even get health care for our taxes.

I also think that those who think that we only pay low taxes compared to other countries, yes, in some ways we do, but if you add up all the REAL tax you pay in the US, not just state and federal, we're talking property, sales, gas, BUSINESS TAX (which doubles my tax bracket), we're really paying like 50%+ of our gross in taxes. Small business gets raped.

You're name isn't "Allen" BTW, is it? LOL Just joking.

Nope Besides, I'm in British Columbia and he's in Levittown,PA.

Stewart