Most companies licensing the use of their trademarks would not think that a simple license agreement, which provides nothing more than use of the trademark in exchange for a fee, would for legal purposes be treated as a franchise agreement. But if the trademark licensor is in New York then what it thought was a simple trademark license agreement relationship is likely really a franchise arrangement. Read more
Tag: Syracuse
Updates to IRS Tax Partnership Audit Rules
There are changes coming to any business operation that is currently taxed as a partnership in the United States. The concept of the “tax matters partner” is being done away with in favor of what is called a “partnership representative.” Read more
New York Qualified Emerging Technology Company (QETC) Incentives
If your company operates in New York and meets the definition of a “qualified emerging technology company” (a “QETC”) it is eligible for New York tax credits. Additionally if you are a New York State taxpayer and interested in investing in a QETC you may be eligible to claim a credit as well. Read more
New York Tax Department’s Voluntary Disclosure and Compliance Program
If you become aware of the fact that you’ve failed to report and pay tax due to New York State, don’t think that it will go away. It will only get worse. Penalties, interest and especially criminal charges are serious business. The New York Tax Department has a Voluntary Disclosure and Compliance Program that you can avail yourself of. Read more
New York State Manufacturer’s Real Property Tax Credit
If you are a “qualified New York manufacturer” doing business as a corporation and you paid real property taxes (either as the owner or as the lessee) for your business location where you perform the manufacturing activities, you are eligible for the New York State Manufacturer’s Real Property Tax Credit.
The Credit is equal to 20% of the eligible real property taxes paid by the manufacturer each year. The manufacturer must exclude portions of the owned or leased real property that are not used in the manufacturing activities (such as parking lots, and common areas, etc.).
A “qualified New York manufacturer” is a manufacturer that either (1) has property in New York State of the type described for New York’s investment tax credit under Tax Law section 210.12(b)(i)(A) that has an adjusted basis for federal income tax purposes of at least $1 million at the end of the tax year, or (2) has all its real and personal property in New York State.
IRS Voluntary Disclosure Practice
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
Strip Rights
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
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
Clickwrap License Cases: Treiber & Straub, Inc. v. UPS, 474 F.3d 379 (7th Cir. 2007)
Treiber & Straub, Inc. v. UPS, 474 F.3d 379 (7th Cir. 2007).
I think this case gives a more “substantive” holding than some of the other cases which merely hold that procedural items are enforceable, such as forum selection, class action waivers, etc. This case actually enforces UPS’s online shipping website’s Terms of Use to the detriment of the shipper.
In this case, a user shipped a ring worth $100,000 via UPS’s online shipping website. He submitted the ring in a package for shipping with the shipping label. UPS then lost or misplaced the package.
In order to ship the ring the user had to click not once, but twice, to agree to UPS’s websites shipping Terms of Use. The terms provided that UPS would not be responsible for any item of “unusual value” which it stated was anything over $50,000 (which is the maximum amount UPS let you insure an item for).
The shipper then put in a claim with UPS, and UPS disclaimed stating it did not have to pay him anything because it was an item of unusual value. The shipper then sued for the value of the ring and the court upheld UPS’s Terms of Use, finding that UPS provided adequate notice on its website to anyone shipping an item.
The Court held that using a clickwrap agreement for online transactions was “common in Internet commerce” where “one signifies agreement by clicking on a box on the screen.” The court reasoned that merely because the user chose not to read the terms, that does not let him avoid any of the provisions he does not like.
Clickwrap License Cases: Davidson & Associates v. Jung, 422 F.3d 630 (8th Cir. 2005)
In Davidson & Associates v. Jung, 422 F.3d 630 (8th Cir. 2005), the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit upheld a clickwrap agreement that prohibited reverse engineering. In that case, the clickwrap agreement that had to be accepted prior to playing the online game prohibited reverse engineering.
The clickwrap agreement was included in the End User License Agreement that each user had to affirmatively agree to (by clicking on “I Agree” button) when installing the game, and you could not play the game without agreeing. Users also had to enter a CD Key which was included on the copy of the CD the game came on. The CD Key was connected to the CPU’s IP address to prohibit pirating and copying of the CDs.
Certain users, unhappy with the games’ performance and the system used to play the online game, reverse engineered the game and created their own site to play it against others on the game maker’s site. Blizzard, the game maker sued.
The Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit upheld the clickwrap agreement provision that prohibited reverse engineering, stating that the users had expressly relinquished their right to reverse engineer by agreeing to the terms of the license agreement.
There were various other copyright claims, and the court also held that the users violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which seemingly made ruling against the users easier.