It's like if someone saw me pick up a quarter on the sidewalk and cited me for operating a business without a permit and being improperly zoned.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3171665
http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/08/03/the-inexplic...
> In Coralville, Iowa police shut down 4-year-old Abigail Krstinger’s lemonade stand after it had been up for half an hour. Dustin Krustinger told reporters that his daughter was selling lemonade at 25 cents a cup during the Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Race Across Iowa (or RAGBRAI), and couldn’t have made more than five dollars, adding “If the line is drawn to the point where a four-year-old eight blocks away can’t sell a couple glasses of lemonade for 25 cents, than I think the line has been drawn at the wrong spot.”
I guess they probably would have sued her parents on top of closing the stand.
Second, while these organizations theoretically "have no such right", there are plenty of instances where they do directly wield force yet escape justice, abuse the force-wielding functions of government to harm people, or use their concentrated power to buy off parts of the government (principle agent problem). Insisting that these are ultimately government problems because a perfect minimalist government would not succumb is highly wishful thinking. It's falling into the classic political trap of addressing one half the problem while drumming up full-speed-ahead support for the other half.
A company would not be nearly so dangerous if it could not in turn influence the government to destroy you. It is much cheaper to give campaign donations to a US senator and then hand him laws to pass or ask for subsidies or for no-bid government contracts than is it to actually compete in an open market where you have to provide a better service for a better price than everyone else.
I find it amazing that people clamor for the government to protect them and yet day after day we see examples of the government crushing the helpless, confiscating their property, throwing flash bangs at their children, torturing them, or just straight up murdering them, and all without consequence, at most you get a pretty speech than it s back to business as usual handing out billions of tax payer wealth so companies can give some of drippings back to our 'elected' representatives.
And when you bring this up, what do people say? They tell you it's just bad luck, there really are some good people in government, try contacting your your congress critter, try getting into public office. The definition of insanity is to repeat the same action over and over again and expect a different result.
It would be humorous except non-government, non-corporate individuals have no way to redress grievances.
You can protest, is what I'm saying.
I'm not saying that a few bad apples spoil the bunch. What I said was that it isn't true that all parts of every government office are abusive. I implied that issues in Idaho's state government aren't the same as those in Miami's Precinct Alderman's offices, and those are different than those in Washington, D.C.
Where shall I gather the money to run radio ads? You actually believe planting trees is a way to address grievances?
My state and national representative will not care one iota for my opinion if it isn't attached to either A: a large check or B: a large constituency.
I wrote there are numerous examples of government abuse on all levels, how is it then not true that every government office is abusive? Yes, perhaps this particular ranger in this particular state park is clean as a whistle -- in our orchard of rotten apples there are still a few good ones if you pick through the garbage.
Radio: any type of fundraising that you believe would work, or try to get free air time on local broadcasts or regional programs. It helps if you have an interesting topic to talk about.
Trees: If it gets your message across, yes. It would be a good news story.
"My state and national representative will not care one iota for my opinion if it isn't attached to either A: a large check or B: a large constituency."
Have you ever tried? This is the kind of statement made by someone who has nothing but second- and third-hand knowledge of the process, usually garnered through biased news organizations (they all are).
My experience has been that very few citizens are involved in politics as lobbying goes. I'm convinced that if every private citizen got as involved in the actual process as they are in complaining, actual, paid lobbyists would be driven out of business. They only speak for us because we do not speak for ourselves.
I have successfully lobbied my state representative. I wrote to the local paper, I arranged an interview with compelling stories for local television. I made a nuisance out of myself until I got airtime on local radio stations. I made such a stink that my federal representatives even called me to discuss the issue and ask for my thoughts (albeit not too much in depth). I spoke for myself, because the people who were doing it full time didn't have my best interests at heart.
But, I felt passionately about the topic. You're right, it's easier with money, but you can also spend time and energy for nearly as good of a return. Not everyone has these things to spare, and I appreciate that (I was lobbying against cuts to low-income early childhood in my area; the exact kind of people who have neither time, money, nor energy to fight the fight). But, if it's something you truly feel is right, just, and good, you'll figure out how to make it happen.
Finally, to bring it back around to the original argument; it may be that several government entities are abusive. It is probably true that a majority are corrupt. But to say that ---all-- government is abusive or corrupt is just ridiculous. Those type of arguments add nothing to the conversation other than noise.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_federal_agencies_in_the...
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-12-23/bunbury-girls-lemonade...
It includes some great quotes from the council spokesperson.
> An 11-year-old girl's cupcake and lemonade stand has been shut down by Bunbury city council officers over health and safety concerns.
> "The city applauds her efforts in trying to be entrepreneurial, but it is important to seek professional advice in relation to legal requirements."
> "If she can look at manufacturing food in a commercial kitchen, then there is a possibility that she will be able to do it in the future," Ms Upton said.
Is there such an amount? As far as I know all income is taxable, there is no "minimum amount per source."
If you're talking more "real world" (e.g. pick up a quarter so fail to declare) then why would the FAA care at all about that? You cannot cite some fictional minimum income per source and then expect the FAA to adhere to it.
In Canada, if you owe the government less than $2 in taxes, they don't want the money.
Yes. When the income exceeds your expenses it becomes commercial. That's seems like a very clear and bright line to separate the two without worrying about youtube ads.
That makes it not commercial. The IRS has rules about "hobby" which are basically the same: If you don't [eventually] make money after expenses and deductions, it's not a business.
For example there are exemptions written into the law about gain on selling a house, if you don't make too much extra.
Are you trying to ask me about making something commercial retroactively? i.e. you did not buy the jacket with the intent to sell it for more, and now suddenly it's worth more?
Or you can put the earnings inside a business, and then offset it with expenses. The business could pay you salary, or you can keep the money inside the business and realize it as capital gains tax later when you want.
You have many choices on how to organize the money.
You could possibly use minimum wage as a threshold for whether something realistically counts as commercial. That might be too high though.
Would it be inappropriate for the FAA to make up a line below which things are blatantly not real income in their eyes?
Who would be responsible for a national guideline anyway?
But I wouldn't imagine huge objection to saying that anything below a tenth of minimum wage per hour of work is a noncommercial hobby.
Edit: Or $400.
http://www.freelancetaxation.com/the-minimum-freelancers-nee...
So if you make $20,000 a year and find $1 on the street, you're supposed to declare that dollar.
Another fun fact: if you crash at a friend's house for a few months without paying rent, you're supposed to count the amount you didn't pay in rent as gift income.
I think it's safe to say that everyone that has filled their taxes has does something wrong. Sometimes it's not even clear to the IRS what a person should do.
You're fundamentally correct, but it's worth unpacking the logic here. First, the donor pays the gift tax, unless an agreement is in place for the recipient to do so. The controlling case is Dickman v. Commissioner, 465 U.S. 330 (1984), and the basic idea is that, if you have a recognizable property right, foregoing the commercial use of that property in favor of providing it at a discounted rate creates a recognized gift. The gift amount is determined by the fair market rental value of the property. (This gets around the concern of the poster below about how you're supposed to declare income you didn't receive.)
Gift taxes are really just a method of checking large-scale tax evasion schemes where someone gifts assets to family members; to ameliorate the effects, there's a $14K/person/year exclusionary zone (plus other exemptions and methods to reduce liabilities) where you don't have to declare or worry about gifts.
Technically, couch-surfing probably wouldn't trigger the IRS' interest (not sure even they would try to figure out the fair-market value of a couch and a blanket), but giving someone a room (let alone the full use of a rental property) would in fact be a taxable event. However, it's unlikely, even in the Bay Area, that the value of that would rise above the $14K/person gift exclusion. In Dickman, the parents had to give a lot of interest-free loans to trigger the IRS' interest.
They had to give me the loan at at least the prime rate (which was fine for me, since at the time there was no way I was getting a loan at that rate).
Sex is monetizable in some jurisdictions (almost nowhere in the US, but neverless somewhere!) and as a result all sexual acts have monetary value; it doesn't really matter where they are performed. Given that they have value someone must be giving up income by not charging, and someone else is receiving a gift which the other party is so generously waiving.
Do you let your partner see your tax return for fear that they claim you don't value them as much as you should? Or do you overvalue them and get overtaxed? Where's the fine line? Or do you agree amongst the two of you that for the purpose of your tax returns you're both "$5 blowjob on the corner for crack" material to keep each of your taxes to a minimum? Who's to argue?
Do the government have to send people around to rate you both to ensure you're not skipping out on taxes? "Well, she's a 10 who could easily score the $8,000 a night which is the going rate at Madame's High Class Escorts down the street. You've been living together for 6 years now and you've not claimed this as a taxable benefit. So you owe us back taxes on $17.52M - we don't care that you only earned $480,000 in that time. Also, we're really not understanding how she's with you knowing she could have made $17.04M more if she ditched you." and handing your partner their business card...
Even using "market rates" as this thread is suggesting is an incredibly subjective affair. Let's say you rent a room some place, at market rate for the area... what's market rate? It's 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom, shared kitchen; but there's mold and clearly the roof leaks, none of the kitchen cupboards shut properly, the hot water doesn't work, the door lock is a wedge of wood in the door jam, you've seen cockroaches. It's rented out by a slumlord, but it's in a ritzy neighborhood. You're in a position where you have to rent this place, it's a dump, you're not sure if you weren't in this situation that anyone else in their right mind would rent it... the rent is $1,500 a month, because of the location.
Your friend down the street takes pity on you and lets you crash in his spare room to save you the indignity of living in this shit hole. Do you get taxed on the place you can afford or the rate your friend could get if he put his spare room up for rent? Given that he doesn't want to rent his room out to a stranger, but he's letting you crash there for free because he's your friend, what is the market rate for that room? The same as the one down the street which is only room for rent on the street? How does "market rate" get applied?
http://www.irs.gov/Businesses/Small-Businesses-&-Self-Employ...
Defining commerciality is difficult. It's one of the problems I have with the non-commercial variants of Creative Commons licenses. I have seen people on Flickr strongly object to NC photos being used on a blog with Adsense. And how about a large 501(c)(3) non-profit, perhaps one whose politics you disagree with? Take a broad enough view and very little is non-commercial.
Here's their rules for model aircraft, with a section on what does and doesn't count as hobby use.
that wouldn't be that bad considering the alternative charge of say "money laundering" (if, say, you puff off some grains of sand from the quarter), "illegal deposit acceptance" or other money transfer/handling crimes.