IRS Voluntary Disclosure Practice

Tax

Faced with the situation that you or your company has been misreporting income or miscalculating taxes, you should not stick your head in the sand and hope that it never catches up with you.  You should work with your accountant and attorney and calculate the amount due.

First, the IRS has two voluntary disclosure programs.  The first is for domestic voluntary disclosure of tax issues, which I am discussing here.  The other is a separate program for Offshore Account Voluntary Disclosure (to be discussed in a later post). Read more

Trademark Consent Agreements

Intellectual Property, Trademarks

When filing a trademark application, if the USPTO Examining Attorney issues an initial refusal because he or she finds that there is a substantial likelihood of confusion with a pre-existing mark, this can be an issue with respect to getting the application registered.  One way around this is to enter into a Consent Agreement with the holder of the pre-existing filed trademark. Read more

Partnership Taxation: Substantial Economic Effect

Choice of Entity, LLCs, Partnership, Tax

Partnership taxation is a complex area of tax law. We’ll be walking through some of the issues you should be aware of.

The first is to ensure you are getting the deal you thought you were.  Partners (or LLC members where the LLC has multiple members and does not “check the box“) can agree on how to allocate the profit and losses of the business as they see fit in the agreement.  The allocations can be done in any manner the partners/members choose, provided that the allocations have “substantial economic effect.” See IRC 704(b); Treas. Reg. 1.704-1(b). Read more

Strip Rights

Employees/Contractors, Securities, Stock, Tax

In addition to the other ways we’ve discussed here (stock options, phantom stock, stock appreciation rights), another way to compensate individuals working for a startup is to give them a cash payment upon a change in control of the company, called in the industry a “strip right”.

For example if a startup company has four founders each owning 25% of the shares, and they bring on another but don’t grant him or her shares, the initial founders can agree to pay the new individual a percentage of the “net proceeds” received from a “change in control” of the corporation.   “Net proceeds” is usually defined as the gross proceeds received minus transaction costs and brokers commissions as well as some other items.   A “change in control” is defined as it normally is in these agreements, and covers if the company merges with another or sells substantially all of the company’s assets.  In such a case, the shareholders would receive cash (or assets it can sell for cash, like tradeable shares of the acquirer).  The strip right agreement would require the shareholders that granted it to pay to the holder of the strip right, either a percentage or flat fee before they received their cash for the change of control.

In the example, if the four founders grant a 10% strip right, and a couple years down the road the company is sold for one million dollars, with transaction fees of $100,000, the holder of the strip right would receive $90,000 (net proceeds of $900,000 x ten percent).    The shareholders would split the rest of the $810,000 and each receive $202,500.

One of the benefits of the granting of the strip right is that it is not taxable to the recipient.  The downside, at least to the recipient is that they are not a shareholder of the corporation and they may never receive a cent if there is never a change in control.  Due to its tenuous nature, the strip right is usually granted in connection with other compensation awards.

 

SEC Adopts Final Rules Amending Regulation A

Crowdfunding, Financing Your Business, Investors, Securities, Stock, Venture Capital

On March 25, 2015, the SEC adopted final rules amending Regulation A, referred to now as Regulation A+. These amendments were required by Congress via Title IV of the JOBS Act which was passed some time ago. (we are all still waiting for the Regulation Crowdfunding rules to be finalized).

The general rule is that when a company offers or sells a security, the security must either be registered or an exemption from registration must be relied upon.  Regulation A has been on the books for a long long time and has been relied on very little.

Now the SEC has a tough job, its tasked with allowing companies to raise money via offerings of securities but on the other hand it needs to ensure that fraud does not run rampant. These two goals don’t have to be mutually exclusive, but the SEC has generally focused on the latter of the two at the expense of the first.  Read more

S Corporations: Loss of S Election Due to Disparate Distributions

S Corporations, Tax

Another item that could cause an entity taxed as an S corporation to lose the election is disparate distributions.  Like most things, this is simple in theory but more complicated in application.  The theory is that the shareholders of an S corporation are entitled only to the proportion of corporation distributions based on their percentage ownership of the stock.  In other words, if you are a shareholder of an S corporation, you are entitled to the same proportion of distributions as you own shares (if you own 1/3 of the shares, you are entitled to 1/3 of the distributions). Read more

S Corporations: Losing S-Corp Status Due to Passive Income

Choice of Entity, S Corporations, Tax

Owners of corporations elect S corporation taxation status for the pass through and other benefits the election provides. There are various things that can arise that would cause an S corporation to lose its election.  In this and following posts, I’ll walk through some of the most common.  The one I want to discuss now is the S corporation passive income restriction.  Read more

S Corporations: Electing to be taxed as an S Corporation

Business Entity Formation, Choice of Entity, S Corporations, Startup Formation, Tax

I’m going to be posting a number of posts on the ins and outs of electing and operating a corporation which elects to be taxed as a small business corporation (an “S Corp”) with the IRS.  There are many benefits to such an election, but there are also pitfalls that many owners run into that could jeopardize the election.

The first post in this series is simply how to make the election. Read more

Clickwrap License Cases: Other/Misc

Contracts, Internet Law, Online Agreements
  • Starke v. Gilt Groupe, Inc., 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 58006 (S.D.N.Y. 2014) (arbitration provision in clickwrap license, which had a link to the text of the license, was upheld, and found not to be unconscionable).
  • Motise v. America Online Inc., 346 F. Supp 2d 563 (S.D.N.Y. 2004) (user that signed on with another user’s id and password still bound, as sub-licensee, of the terms including forum selection clause).
  • Hoffman v. Supplements Togo Management, LLC 18 A3d 210 (N. J. App. Div. 2011) (found forum selection clause unenforceable due “the manifestly unfair manner in which defendant’s website was structured” and court seemed to imply that it believed the website owner was intentionally hiding the terms).
  • Caspi v. Microsoft Network, LLC, 323 NJ Super 118 (N.J. App. Div. 1999) (upheld forum selection clause where users had to click on scrollable window and click “I agree” or “I don’t agree.”)
  • Mortgage Plus, Inc. v. DocMagic, Inc., 2004 WL 2331918, 2004 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 20145 (D. Kan. 2004) (clickwrap agreement upheld)
  • Taxes of P.R., Inc. v. TaxWorks, Inc., 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 37765 (D.P.R. 2014) (upheld forum selection clause in clearly stated clickwrap agreement, following ProCD precedent).

Browsewrap License Cases: Specht v. Netscape Communications Corp., 306 F.3d 17 (2nd Cir. 2002)

Contracts, Internet Law, Online Agreements

In Specht v. Netscape Communications Corp., 306 F.3d 17 (2nd Cir. 2002), Users who downloaded certain software programs provided by Netscape filed a class action in federal court.  Netscape then moved for arbitration which was required as per the download terms. There were, however, multiple ways to download the Netscape programs, some of which required an affirmative assent and some of which did not require any assent to the terms of the license (case is about the latter).

The 2nd Circuit found that users could download and use the software without having to view the full terms of the contractual arrangement including the arbitration clause. The Court stated that a reasonably prudent consumer would not assent to contractual terms that were so inconspicuous that they could use the product while totally overlooking them. You had to scroll down and click on the terms to see them.

The Court said what is needed is “clarity and conspicuousness” to ensure the user is cognizant of the terms of the license (emphasis mine).  This is the phrase to keep in mind when clients are creating browsewrap and clickwrap agreements to bind users online.

Aside: Court seemed concerned that the Internet gives companies too many opportunities to exploit unsuspecting users. Simple rule is that if the user is not reasonably alerted to the contractual terms, she cannot assent to them.