Re:Please remove mitsuhiko/*
by Erwin on Saturday November 01, 2014 @11:36AM
(#8543388)
Consider this: you are in a high-tax country and have some incoming lucrative income. Instead of receiving that income and paying the tax, the company sends you an email saying: Here's a $100,000, come get if you want, but you don't have to! It's a tip! It'll get donated to MSF in a few years. Wink, wink. You put in your income for the year as $0 (not having accepted this tip), and leave for the Seyschelles, where suddenly you come upon this email (you didn't check your Spam folder until then) and claim your now tax-free $100,000.
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Re:Please remove mitsuhiko/*
by randallsquared on Saturday November 01, 2014 @11:48AM
(#8543443)
Sure, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_avoidance . Various strategies to reduce income in one year or jurisdiction and apply it to another are widespread, and I'm not sure why this would be different. I am not a lawyer, though.
The "It's a tip!" nature of this seems irrelevant to taxes: either you accept it or you don't, and if you do, you may or may not be required to pay taxes on it, depending on laws that are applied to you.
Re:Please remove mitsuhiko/*
by bewaretheirs on Saturday November 01, 2014 @01:06PM
(#8543748)
in the US the key event is when the income becomes available to you, not when you collect it.
The proper thing to do in your hypothetical case (where you didn't see the message until well into the next tax year) would be to file an amended return for the previous year declaring the recently discovered income.