How can somebody pay taxes of a &quot;gifted&quot; car? Suppose someone buys a used car for cash, and the seller says &quot;I will write in the title that it's a gift to avoid sales tax, instead of giving you a discount&quot;. Suppose further that the buyer didn't know this would be a tax fraud and accepts the seller's suggestion and gets the car's title. Later the buyer learns the law and wants to clear his record. How can he pay the tax to avoid being known as a person who commits tax fraud?
When the buyer hears &quot;to avoid sales tax&quot; and hears the seller describing as a gift something that s/he knows was nothing of the sort, a reasonable buyer would know that this was at best suspicious, and would find out if this was legal. But assuming that the buyer accepted the seller's suggestion ignorantly and in good faith, the buyer can file a report of the transaction and pay any tax that should have been paid. The exact way of doing this will vary based on the laws of the buyer's jurisdiction (state-level if in the US) which is not given in the question. Such a report and payment might not prevent the local tax authorities from assessing an additional penalty. Criminal charges seem unlikely, but would be possible. If the seller was a used car dealer, the authorities might want the buyer to testify against the seller. They buyer might be wise to consult a lawyer with expertise in sales tax issues in the buyer's jurisdiction. Such a lawyer could advise on exactly what the buyer's legal obligation was, and how to avoid or minimize penalties or other consequences.
As far as I am aware there is no prohibition against bartering firearms in general. This would be an odd prohibition since it is legal to gift and lend firearms. However, some of your situations change this. could I legally manufacture and exchange a firearm If you manufactured a firearm with the intent to sell you would be required to have an FFL. If this was a one-off sale of a firearm you manufactured at some point in the past for personal use this can be legal without an FFL. There are some additional requirements for the transfer. No party is a known criminal It is illegal to sell or give a firearm to someone you know to be a prohibited possessor. Not all criminals are prohibited from owning firearms, but this helps keep you safe. No party inspects the ID of the other or performs a background check This is state dependent. Some states make you go through an FFL for all transfers, others are much less strict. New Hampshire does not require private sales to go through an FFL if you know the buyer personally. Each party is known to be or appears to be old enough to own a firearm legally This is required for your scheme to be legal. One party barters regularly in this manner using firearms and firearm components This person is now engaged in the business of selling firearms and must be a registered FFL and jump through all the corresponding hoops. No party is licensed to sell firearms Not typically required, unless you do this in a regular basis.
Any tax overpayments will be refunded after you file your tax return next year. Accidental overpayment is just one way this can happen. Another common situation is when a person works for only a few months at what looks like a high annual salary. They'd be taxed as if they were making $120,000 / year, for example, but they only work for three months, so their income ends up only being $40,000. They get money back at tax-return time.
Swiss customs has a form to submit questions like this and they gave me a very informative answer. As it turns out the receiver is also part of the customs process. If for some reason customs decides to open an investigation assuming that something regarding declaration/import was wrong the receiver will also be part of the investigation and it is possible that they determine that the receiver is at fault as well. In this case in addition to the import fee additional fines or fees might be imposed on the receiver. I do not know how they determine this, but from a law perspective it is clear. There is always the option to just report a wrong declaration upon receiving the package which means you have to pay the import fee, but no other fines, fees or investigations will include the receiver (assuming the goods involved can be imported legally). The legal part points towards (this part sadly does not exist in English): Zollschuldner Art. 70 Zollgesetz (specifically section 70 (2) c.). For the unlikely reason that the swiss administrative legal code becomes unavailable this is said article translated by me: Customs debtors have to pay customs fee, or if they become unavailable make guarantee for it (materially). Customs debors include: a) The person sending goods across the border (sender) b) The person responsible declaring the goods c) The person on whos behalf goods are ordered &lt;-- Some interesting tidbits: Transport compaines are not liable for anything Your heirs inherit your customs penalties (i.e. you order something from another country, then your heirs have to pay customs fees if you happen to die) Buying a company also means buying their customs obligations.
It is not necessarily a crime to do this, but the gift to you and from you to Betty would be disregarded and treated as if gift directly from Alice to Betty, if the IRS knew all of the facts. A gift implies a donative intent directed at you. When there is an understanding that you are acting at Alice's direction, you aren't receiving a gift, you are acting as Alice's agent. This said, this scheme, or the alternative it seeks to prevent, has no impact on Betty, because gift taxes are imposed on the donor rather than the recipient of the gift. And, in most cases, a gift in excess of the $14,000 per person per year gift tax exemption will have only a minimal impact. This is because each person is entitled to make a combination of gifts in excess of the exemption during life and transfers to non-spouses and non-charities at death of $11,200,000 per lifetime (adjusted annually for inflation). Usually, all that is necessary if the limit is exceeded is for the donor to file form 706 (a federal gift tax return) at the same time as the donor's income tax return, and this form is very simple if the only gifts given are cash gifts. Transfers to a U.S. citizen spouse are gift and estate tax free, as are gifts to foreign and domestic charities. Spouses who file a Form 709 in a year may treat gifts given by one spouse as actually given half by each spouse. If someone dies not having used their entire $11,200,000 (adjusted for inflation) lifetime exemption, their surviving spouse, if any, inherits that unused portion and can use it at their death in addition to their own lifetime exemption. So, Alice and Betty are trying to evade a tax law that is easy and trouble free to comply with, and may provide future benefits by documenting the intent of the parties with respect to a large gift (so that someone doesn't later try to characterize it as a loan or contribution to a trust estate, for example). While it isn't a crime, it is ill advised and won't benefit them materially in the end.
As explained in more detail here: The IRS instructions on Form 1099-MISC are pretty clear as to when and how you must file that. You don't need to file a 1099-MISC if total payments to an entity in a tax year are under $600. And if you don't need to file tax forms, you don't need to request a W-9. (If in doubt as to the entity receiving the money, you demand a W-9 from whomever is receiving a payment and use that as the basis of reporting payments.) Furthermore, if you transmit the funds using a payment settlement entity who will report the transaction on a 1099-K, then you don't need to report the payment on a 1099-MISC. (See "Form 1099-K" ibid.) PayPal is a payment settlement entity, so you don't need to worry about reporting payments you send through them ... with one big exception: PayPal does not report "payments to friends and family," and so if you're using that to avoid their fees then the IRS would consider you liable for reporting those payments on a 1099-MISC.
A receipt is just a written proof that money was taken. It is hard to imagine a place on Earth where the legality of giving such a proof would be questionable at all so that you would need to talk about an "authority to issue receipts". Only if you find a place where money itself is illegal. Now, the real question here is whether such receipts (issued by private persons not registered as businesses) can be used for accounting purposes, e.g. to claim that your business, which transacted with those persons, incurred expenses. The mere fact that sole traders need to be registered to do business does not outlaw the use of receipts issued by non-registered persons. For example, your business could be buying old stuff from the public (used cars, electronics etc.) and refurbishing it. Provided that this activity itself is not illegal, receiving receipts from those one-off private sellers, and using them in your bookkeeping would be perfectly legal too.
Possibly. I am analyzing this issue under generally applicable, majority, common law rules of law (applicable in the U.S. (except Puerto Rico and Louisiana) and in most countries that are or were part of the British Commonwealth), when not modified by statute or regulation. If there is a contract regarding what is to be done, the measure of damages is &quot;the benefit of the bargain&quot;. And if the benefit of the bargain included an express or implied warranty that the transaction would be conducted in a manner that obtained a tax benefit and that tax benefit was not obtained, the difference between the economic value of the agreed result and the actual result would be recoverable as monetary damages (which would then raise the meta issue of the tax treatment of the recovery which is beyond the scope of this answer). Two other kinds of claims in addition to a straight breach of contract claim are also plausible. One is a claim for breach of the duty of good faith and fair dealing arising in every contract, which requires that someone who has discretion in the way that they perform a contract to do so in a manner that reflects the intent of the parties regarding the objectives and purposes of the contract when carrying it out. By intentionally disregarding the intent of the parties, in how the transaction would be carried out, damages in the form of additional taxes could be incurred. Another is a claim for breach of fiduciary duty in a case where the person carrying out the transaction and the person for whom the transaction was carried out are in a fiduciary relationship, such as a customer and a broker with discretionary authority, or an agent and principal, or a lawyer and client. Usually, when someone is entrusted with discretionary management of someone else's money or property, a fiduciary relationship arises by operation of law. The taxes unnecessarily and intentionally incurred in this case could also be damages for a breach of fiduciary duty. On the other hand, in contracts and transactions of this character, there would frequently be an express contractual waiver of any right to recover for taxes incurred, allegedly wrongfully, in the transaction. This waiver would be effective against a claim for breach of contract or a claim alleging that a fiduciary negligently violated a duty of care owed to the person upon whose behalf the transaction was conducted. But, waivers of rights are generally ineffective and void as contrary to public policy, when the wrongdoing purportedly waived is intentional or conducted in bad faith in a manner that is knowingly contrary to the mutual intent of the parties to a transaction. So, while a waiver would be effective if someone accidentally incurs additional taxes for someone else, it generally wouldn't be effective if someone screwed up the tax outcome intentionally as the question proposes in its example.