I just bought this name. I know it’s no big generic name, but it cracks me up. I like and I’m not selling it until I get a few thousand for it at least, maybe more. I’ve got some ideas for it, but what kind of site do you guys think it would be a good name for? YouTube (rhymes!) for boobs? A site about idiots? What do you think?
And, hey, I thought I told you in my last post to buy my son’s CD! 
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I was looking through some snapnames.com names this morning when I saw that FreeChildPorn.com is up for auction for $60. Who in the hell, who is not into child pron, would buy a name like this? Why doesn’t snapnames and others have filters to block anything with that exact phrase? It’s sick. Hey, I understand anything with the word “teen” in it, because that includes 18 and 19. But kiddie porn!
I’ve always thought it would be fun to look up the names of those owning child porn domains, find them and confront them (yes, I’d interrogate them first to make sure they weren’t holding the name for anti-child porn usage first). I have a feeling I’d immediately know by looking into their eyes.
Now there’s an idea for someone with more time than me. Make a web site that finds child porn loving people through domain names, and lists their names and addresses, much like a sex offender site. Radical? Yeah.
If you have a good number of domain names you’ve most likely thought about the question of how to account for them at tax time? And, by the way, I’m speaking from a U.S. point of view, where we have very complex (and nonproductive) tax rules.
There are significant decisions to make regarding both the structure of your business (mine is an California LLC for legal protection, and for its simplicity), and of how you treat your names — are they inventory? Are they expenses? Are purchases (above and beyond reg fee) capital expenditures? Amortization? Cap gains or ordinary income?
Crap. It’s enough to make you want to quit the business, if the sheer insanity of the seemingly 24-hour a day name hunting is not for any normal person anyway.
Anyway, it’s likely that your general CPA may not know anything about domain name accounting, so to save a few hundred dollars on him searching for information, I’m going to point you to something that after you read it, you can pass along to your accountant to give them at least a basis of understanding from someone who specializes in this.
Monte Cahn, president of registrar Moniker.com, has a radio program (can’t say I’ve heard it yet, but I’m going to start listening). My CPA found the transcript of one show where he interviewed Evan Brody from Brody & Associates. Evan is Moniker’s corporate tax guy.
I can’t tell you that this interview will answer every question for you on the subject. Hell, when it comes to taxes, I don’t know if one can ever get complete answers. Sometimes, it’s so subjective anyway. But there is a lot of good information. It’s at least enough to get you scared into thinking about how to do it right, I hope.
One of the most interesting things I got out of it is this shocking statistic: “when you’re unincorporated on what they call a Schedule C or Sole Proprietorship, the audit ratio which is really something that is a variable that you really don’t take into consideration for tax planning, but just some statistical information, those entities get audited 11 times more than if you were a corporation.”
Now that’s frightening. I’m assuming since I’m neither a Schedule C or Sole Proprietorship, or a corporation, my LLC falls into or close to the corporation audit rate. I think it just signals to the IRS that the filer is simply more willing ($800 a year in California) to take steps to be serious about their taxes. By the way, I can also tell you that I’ve heard that having your taxes done by a CPA greatly reduces the risk of an audit. I guess individuals are more likely to either lie or make mistakes, than would be a CPA.
So, for your reading enjoyment, here is the Monte Kahn Domains and Taxes transcript.
I would appreciate it if readers would post into the comments any other links to domain business tax discussions they know of! And, please post your own knowledge, or how you do your accounting.
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