Maybe I am being too cranky, but I am tired of people still blogging complaints about the guidelines the FTC has imposed on people doing endorsements. I can understand it after the initial imposing of said guidelines but now it’s just a dead horse. So can we please quit complaining? Seriously?
And too I am looking at this with the accountant’s mind. See the thing is, people seem to think that reviewing products and keeping said products are “free”. The reality is it’s not. First off someone is giving you something in exchange for a service. Income is not just money but the fair market value of anything you receive in exchange for a service. If you don’t do the review, the company more or less is going to want the product back in the same condition it was sent in or the cost of the item. Absolutely nothing in this world is “free”, it costs someone something. If a company sends you an item that they sell for $40, they lose that sale. Assuming a 50% markup it costs them $20 plus shipping costs and then the other $20 lost in sales. Yea, it’s free to you but they are paying for it. And if you review that item they have paid you with that item to do the review.
Now I know some are going to say, “I don’t review that much”. No, some people don’t and there are some people who set out to make it a “career”. However, if you do reviews you should be reporting the fair market value (retail value in this case) as your income. If you do one review a month for items at about $40 a pop, that is $480 in income. May not seem like alot but it can put you in a new tax bracket depending on about 100 different factors (kids, wages, annuities, day care expenses,standard deductions, itemizing deductions, etc etc). Now with FTC guidelines the IRS is going to be looking at bloggers and work at home mom incomes even more. Even moreso now, working from home will become a red flag for auditors to review your return more carefully. This isn’t to scare you, this is just the truth. And don’t get into the mentality that the IRS is going to go after large corporations. First off small business and what I call Schedule C’rs (work from home people) make up the larger portion of businesses in the country. And who do you think will be easier to audit? Yep, the small business. Larger corporations take more amount of time to comb through everything. The IRS is probably going to go for what is easier and less time consuming.
Lastly, I have to say you should be VERY careful about announcing on your blog or twitter that you won’t be including the info on your return. I have already witnessed this once…dangerous stuff. The IRS offers rewards for people reporting others who are committing tax fraud (ie: not claiming all sources of income). And announcing it on your blog or twitter can make it very easy to locate you. Nothing is hidden well on the internet!
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Uggh.. I don’t do that anyway lol. I review to pass on info, wether I buy it or win it but noone sends me stuff to review & I don’t want to either. I still need to write the post about that…
It would be a good idea to maybe do a post or a disclaimer somewhere that you do not want to receive items to review and that all of your reviews are through contest winnings and personal purchases. Actually as I think about this, a small disclaimer in your sidebar would be a great way to cover that! Then you won’t have to worry about anyone contacting you to do any reviews and IF anyone else came poking along they wouldn’t make false claims.
I review things products on my blog, and I have to say, I don’t think the rules are unfair in the sense that we, as bloggers who review, are making an income from the products we review. Might not be a lot, might be in products vs cash for the most part, but it is an income, and I think it’s fair to have to report it.
The thing that actually gets me, though, is that other media people, like the reviewers for the news or print media, do NOT have the same regulations for their reviews of products. When the guy my hubby works with gets the new tech to review on the news, he doesn’t have to announce on camera that he got one for free, nor does he have to report it as income.
Seems like it should be the same for all “journalists”. If they are going to treat us like writing a blog is a job, that we are getting paid an income for, we should be treated the same way as other writers.
Speaking of people who are claiming they won’t comply with the rules, I’ve also seen people trying to get around this by claiming that the items they are reviewing are “gifts” not review products, that they just happen to want to talk about and share with their readers.
I’m too freaking scared not to just be honest with what I’m doing, lol! I don’t want the IRS coming after me!
I agree wholeheartedly with you on journalists getting the better end of the deal! It is unfair and if you look at some blogs, they are very much like journalists. I think the guidelines do need to be tweaked.
LOL, I am with you on the IRS….we have been through one audit and it wasn’t pleasant. I would rather avoid it!
Yeah, I’ve been meaning to do that… but I haven’t had a chance… and I guess that’s a good thing now because I’ve changed my mind… of sorts. I badly need something I can do from home to make a little extra, and doing them anyway… But I will start putting disclaimers on every review I do stating if its paid or not. I don’t even know if I’ll do that many, just seeing how it goes and if its worth it… Definately being honest here too, but not just out of fear (although that’s true too… I don’t want trouble either) but because anything else just feels wrong.
Well scratch that lol… I got turned down because my blog doesn’t have enough readers. Oh well… I guess that settles that.
Check out AssociatedContent.com. If you like writing that might be a better option for you. Basically they pay you for articles, the more pageviews you get the more money you make. And it’s residual so you could write a bunch of stuff up this year and still make money off of it next year. It won’t make alot of money but it could be enough to buy some gas for a week or some groceries.