[creative812]

I am an F1 student. I have a website for my studio and want to earn money by taking photographs to others. My questions are:

1. Is this legal?
2. Is this a violation of my F1 status?
3. If it is legal and not a violation of F1, how do I report taxable income?
4. Is that legal to put pricing on my website?

Thanks a lot!

[wnhough]

QUOTE,"I have a website for my studio and want to earn money by taking photographs to others."--- In principle, your F1 visa does not allow you to take off your campus employment anywhere or anytime you want. You can only take employment under specific circumstances, such as through OPT or CPT and there are hardship provisions too. But generally, an F1 student cannot simply go out and find employment. This is illegal.As you know, probably many people would encourage you not to do this because it is a violation of your status.
But the issue here MUST be; should the earnin' from running your blog, your website, be treateed as your off campus earning? Actually and technically, it is youroff campus earning as you earn money outside of your on-campus employment anyway. Your blog definitely carries another risky way by which you need to register your studio and hire someone at minimum wages to ‘run’ your blog to earn money;you, as a F1 visa holder, can open your business, But you have to start on other person's name who is having a valid visa(who can work legally and earn income).
If you don't want any kind of risk, the best way that you need to do is to yank off your monetizing avenues off your blog. But it is fundamentally up to you.

[AtlantaTaxExpert]

You are effectively running a business, and that activity is prohibited under your current visa.

Even with wnhough's suggestions, you are STILL in violation of your visa unless you run the website under a subchapter S corporation and take no ACTIVE role in the daily business decisions.

[wnhough]

QUOTE,"unless you run the website under a subchapter S corporation and. . . "-- IRC Section 1361(b)(1)(C)) states that a S-Corporation must not have a nonresident alien as a shareholder. Treasury Regulation Section 7701(b)(1)(B) specifies that a person is a nonresident alien if he isn’t a resident alien. Having a particular visa has no impact on whether a non-resident alien can be a S-corporation shareholder. Only a green card or meeting the IRS’ “substantial presence test” enables an alien to be eligible to be an S Corporation shareholder.