Traveling OUT of California: If your business is located in California, but you are traveling to shoot in another state, please review the sales tax requirements of that state.
Traveling INTO California: If you are from another state and are traveling into California to shoot, please follow the questions below to determine if you need to charge sales tax in California.
When it comes to sales tax, you need to ask yourself three questions. We will walk you through those questions below:
If your business is located in California and you are shooting in California, you have a nexus in California.
If you are traveling from out of state to shoot in California, you have nexus in California. See Traveling to California to Shoot? section below for more details.
The following items address sales tax where everything is happening in California. If you have an out-of-state client, see the orange section below that talks about out-of-state clients.
This specifically refers to digital photos transferred digitally over the internet. Please note any digital images transferred via physical devices like USB drives, CDs, etc., are taxed as physical goods, and all physical goods are taxable.
California says “The sales of photographs that are transferred electronically to your customer are not subject to tax when you do not provide your customer any tangible personal property.”