Question for Web Designers/Developers

Hi all!
I am thinking of providing website building services in our community as
a business. I have been doing it on the side to help people for years
and would like to make a jump to doing it for a living as there seems to
be room in our community for it.

If you are a pro who works for themselves, can you tell me how you do
it? We live in New York State and this state requires you to charge
sales tax on services and considers a webpage a product to be taxed.

Do you work as a subcontractor for businesses? Do you charge tax? If
so, how do you set it in your price?
Do you charge per hour? If so, how much? Do you charge a primary work
up/layout fee and then hourly on top of that? Do you maintain the site
for them after it's done? How do you charge for that?

I would be interested in finding ways to provide the service as "help"
to the business owner. That would make me more like "labor" instead of
a taxable service I think. Sub contractor status might be the way to go
with this?

Any ideas of how you do it would be greatly appreciated. I am open to
long diatribes about what to do and not to do as well. I'm confident in
my work, just prefer to learn the pitfalls BEFORE they might happen from
those who know the biz.

Thank you all! And CSS Rules!!!!

Yes,
I have a DBA and a sales tax license...
I was told by the NYS taxation dept when I was doing digital video
editing and production that those things were considered a service and
needed to be charged sales tax. I made a mistake to assume that it
would be the same with a website. I will contact them directly and ask
them how to do it. I just hate dealing with them. Thanks for pointing
that out.

Beauregard T. Shagnasty wrote:

BMc wrote:

.. We live in New York State and this state requires you to charge
sales tax on services and considers a webpage a product to be taxed.

Do you have a cite for that?

Unless New York law was changed recently, writing web pages is
considered 'custom programming' and is not taxable. At least that is the
way it was several years ago before I retired.

Check with your accountant first. Do you have a DBA from your county,
and a state sales tax license?