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.

Technorati Tags: domain, domain names, tax, IRS, accounting, corporation, LLC, income

It used to drive me nuts entering names or doing anything in my portfolio in Afternic. I could run to the bathroom while the screen was painting and when I got back I still had to wait. But, over the last few months, it’s been much, much faster. (And it’s quick at telling me my names might be too naughty for them, too!)

But, now the once quick-enough Sedo has taken the place of Afternic as the slow-as-molasses site. It’s truly frustrating sometimes. But, I sell just about all my domains there, so I guess I’m stuck with it. But I can still complain.

How’s your experience?

Technorati Tags: domain, domain name, after, sedo

Afternic domain name sellers received an email today telling them that any names they have listed that promote “hate, sex, obscenity or self-destructive behavior, such as substance abuse, violence and gambling” will be delisted.

Well, that’s about a quarter of the domain names. LOL!

Hey, that means my new IHateRobots.com won’t even be able to be listed any longer. RoboPhobia? Crap. Robot hate crimes? I’m in trouble.

I’ve already had too much wine at the Los Olivos Cafe (you know, that movie called Sideways where the actors got drunk) so I want to be careful to not say too much tonight. I should really wait until the morning. But, I’ve got a big mouth so I can’t wait.

Seriously though, I can say that I certainly respect the rights of any private business to do as they please; I’m a conservative thinker (no not a religious conservative)–so do what you want with your business. I don’t think it’s a smart decision, if it helps them sleep better at night, then it’s the right decision for them. It’s just too bad that the only real hope of competition to get Sedo to improve their impossibly frustrating user interface is going to quickly fade away. Sedo NEEDS competition.

Anyway, Afternic’s got the religion, but nothing is going to change in the domain world. They’ll lose not only the “bad” domain names, but the rest of the names in peoples’ portfolio’s that have those domain names in them. People don’t want to start having to keep track of subsets of their portfolio at one of the sales sites; it’s enough work as it is to keep track of thousands of domains and where they are listed.

Hey, I was just wondering…I’ve got this cool name called Pleasurama.com. I suppose you guys with dirty minds think it’s about something sexual, but listen up Afternic, it’s not. Please don’t delist it. It’s about chocolate. Yeah, that’s it. Chocolate. It’s not naughty. Okay? The pleasure of chocolate.

Here’s the letter. What’s your opinion?

Note: Do you guys think you could digg the article so the subject gets some attention? if you will, please go here for the Digg page.

Dear Members, Domainers and Friends:

We want to share with you a recent decision that we believe will put Afternic in an even better position to serve the small business, SOHO community and greater domain industry.

After extensive consideration, we have decided to no longer accept domain names that promote hate, sex, obscenity or self-destructive behavior, such as substance abuse, violence and gambling. The sole rationale behind our decision is to make Afternic a more comfortable site for mainstream domain name shoppers, especially small business owners. We recognize that taking a leadership role on this issue may have a negative financial impact on our business in the near term. Nonetheless, we believe strongly that it’s the right thing long-term decision for our industry and Afternic.

In the next few days, we will de-list these kinds of domain names currently posted on our site. Members who own such names will receive a letter from us informing them which names will no longer be listed. We hope that they, and others, will understand that we have no interest in censorship and that we fully support First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and expression. And, there is certainly no lack of other Internet sites where such names are welcomed.

The Internet, much like the early days of television, is still a new frontier. We believe it is up to the industry leaders-and we include Afternic here-to step up and determine what constitutes professional standards and practices. We take this action in the interest of socially responsible corporate behavior and hope that it leads to further healthy industry dialog and discussion on the topic.

We greatly appreciate your business and support of Afternic, and will continue to endeavor to earn your confidence and trust.

Very best regards,
Roger Collins
President of Afternic, Inc.

Technorati Tags: domain, domain name, afternic, sedo, sex, gambling, drugs

I’m going crazy. I’ve got 1500+ names now and trying to keep them all organized in my Excel spreadsheet is not working out so well. I’ve searched for some software that organizes names for owners, but so far, I’ve seen nothing come close to what I need. Not sure why. So I’m left with trying to do something myself.

I used to be a programmer, but that was a long time ago. But, I could handle building a database on my PC. Right now I’m trying to decide if I should use Microsoft Access 2002, which I already have on my computer, or buy FileMaker Pro 8 for about $300. I downloaded the Filemaker trial yesterday, but of course it’s giving me an installation error and I’m waiting for tech support. It’s always something isn’t it?

I’m going to set up a simple relational database that lets me track all the info for each name, along with offers and counter offers. I’ll create categories, from which multiple one can be assigned per name. I think I’ll also create a table for names I’ve made offers on.

It’s pretty simple stuff. But, I’d rather not spend a few days learning the database program, when I could be out wasting more money on more domains. Anyone out there know of any software, or database template, like this before I get going? Would any database experts out there like to put together a database for me?

Technorati Tags: internet, domain, domain name, access, filemaker

I buy all my domains through GoDaddy.com when I buy directly, but I have wound up with accounts at a dozen other registrars due to buying names from SnapNames.com and Pool.com auctions. With so many names (and so little time!) I was getting nervous about losing track of the names at other registrars. So earlier this week I initiated transfers of all these domains that have past their 60-day transfer waiting period.

Boy, going through this process sure did make me appreciate having chosen GoDaddy for my preferred registrar! It is so easy to use, and the customer service is so good, compared to most the other registrars I’ve had to deal with. Some interfaces were very quirky and featureless. and I had technical problems at two. Resolving the problems was not easy. When one of the companies email went unanswered, I called and was told there was a 60 minute wait time. Other phone attempts that day went similarly…well on the attempts that actually connected . Finally, though, the problems were resolved. I’m looking forward to ridding myself of so many registrars. But, I still have names at other registrars for which I’m waiting for the 60 day window to pass, and they’ll be more auction acquitions.

Do I pay more for GoDaddy than other bargain registrars? Maybe a bit, although I usually register .com’s for $6.95 with coupon codes. With 1400 names each buck adds up, I know. But, I’m a big picture guy and overall it saves me money in time and frustration. By the way, if you are interested, current coupon codes are “goox3005at” to save $2 a .com, and “saveten” to save 10% on any order. (Maybe I should start a page with these codes–what do you think?).

Technorati Tags: internet, domain, domain name, godaddy

Owning a large number of domain names can become unwieldy, especially when I need to perform actions on sets of names with my registrar. For example, I have something like 140 domain names related to solar energy and the other day I wanted to change the nameservers of all of them. The process of hand-selecting each name, even with a bulk edit function is a nightmare. I can’t just search for “solar” because not every name has that word in it.

But, just as I needed to perform this tedious action on the solar energy names, I noticed a new feature in GoDaddy.com, my registrar. Not sure how long it’s been there, but I’d never seen it before, but it said “New!” next to it. It’s the new AccountExec function. Personally, I would have named it the Groups function, because that’s what’s what I think is the really important part.

AccountExec is a Godsend. It allows me to put my names into groups that I can create on the fly. Registrar actions can then be performed on these groups, or names within these groups. You can work with groups from the AccountExec page, and there is a new group selection in the Bulk Edit’s Filter function.

In addition, you can assign individuals to become account managers of any groups, allowing them to make modifications to these names, and only these names. You can even control their privileges. Select from the following options for each account manager:

• Read Only – Your AccountExec can view entrusted domains, but cannot make modifications.
• Admin – Your AccountExec can assume all defined roles defined for the entrusted resources.
• Contacts – Your AccountExec can modify contact information for the entrusted domains as well as email forwarding for third level .NAME domains and Nexus information for .US domains.
• Nameservers – Your AccountExec can modify nameserver information for the entrusted domains.
• Auto Renew – Your AccountExec can set whether or not entrusted domains auto renew upon expiration.
• Cancel – Your AccountExec can cancel the entrusted domains.
• Hosts – Your AccountExec can manage hosts for the entrusted domains.
• Domain Forwarding – Your AccountExec can manage domain forwarding settings for the entrusted domains.

Back to my example, I was able to create a “Solar Energy” group and quickly move all my solar energy names to it. Then, it was a snap to unlock the names, set the nameservers, and relock. I’m going to set up groups for all my various subjects.

You could also choose to set up group based upon where your names are parked. But, GoDaddy already lets you select by nameserver so it’s kind of redundant.

I did some testing and AccountExec allows you to assign a name to more than one group. Now that was smart on their part. It will allow me to have much more flexibility in my organizing efforts. As an example, in addition to groups that represent subject matter categories, I can make groups like Best Names, Average Names and Not So Great Names. Names could be in both a subject matter group and a quality level group.

Here’s a suggestion for GoDaddy if they are listening: allow me to select names by AND/OR groups. I might want to select all Best Names in the Solar Energy Group, or all names in both Best Names and Average Names.

I don’t know which other registrar’s have a feature like this. I’d be interested to hear if others do. If your current registrar does not have this feature and you need to organize a large portfolio of names, consider GoDaddy.com.

Technorati Tags: domain, domain name, internet, godaddy