San Francisco, CA -- (SBWIRE) -- 02/03/2015 -- With the expanse and breadth of the Internet, doing business nationally and internationally can help companies reach potential customers like never before. Unfortunately, many fail to consider the taxes that they will have to pay come April 15. As Tax Season gears up, Washington DC tax lawyers will have their hands full assisting those who have to maneuver through state and federal tax forms.
Airbnb is one such company that has created great success since it was launched in 2008. However, the company has experienced issues with taxes and regulations, particularly in New York City where the number of short-term private rentals through Airbnb had increased from 2,652 in 2010 to 16,483 in the first half of 2014.
As Internet businesses are popping up at a lightening rate, many customers are eagerly jumping onboard. With the quote-unquote "sharing economy," or when ordinary people offer up space in their cars, their bicycles, and in Airbnb's case, the place where they sleep for additional income, many don't calculate in the taxes imposed or that they even will be taxed on renting out their personal property.
However, there is legal assistance available for both the companies that are mediating these new services and for those who are using these services to connect with potential renters. Those who need affordable legal advice regarding taxes can find guidance with the help of innovators like online legal marketplace, UpCounsel, where businesses can connect with tax lawyers that best match their needs and budget. These virtual business lawyers are able to connect with potential clients in a virtual marketplace compiled of thousands of attorneys located all over the United States. They are able to offer much more competitive costs for legal services since they are primarily based online and carry minimal overhead when compared to big law firms.
Finding reputable DC lawyers can help small businesses and independent contractors through the myriad of confusing tax laws that vary from state to state. For example, "if you rent your apartment for less than 15 days a year, it's not taxable income. You don't pay any taxes on a federal level. And if you do over that, it gets really complicated, because it's treated as income," explains Dan Hobbs, a former Goldman Sachs analyst who currently specializes as a tax advisor for the sharing economy. "If you live in a studio apartment or an entire apartment, that whole day's apartment is tax deductible. If you only rent out the bedroom, only the size of the bedroom is going to be tax deductible. It doesn't matter if you share a common area or anything else. That percentage of that days rent is going to be taxed."
While the majority of the population is confused with interstate taxation and Internet tax laws, there are fortunately experts to help each through their own mountains of forms, receipts, and records.
About UpCounsel
UpCounsel helps businesses and entrepreneurs to easily hire great attorneys on-demand that best match their legal needs and budget. By using UpCounsel's virtual legal marketplace to get advice and compare free proposals from specialized attorneys, businesses save hours of time searching for legal services and reduce their legal costs by 60% on average when compared to expensive law firms. To date, thousands of companies have used UpCounsel to save millions of dollars on legal services. For more information, please visit: https://www.upcounsel.com
Contact:
Christina Morales
christina@upcounsel.com
UpCounsel
(888) 981-7449
178 Bluxome St., Suite 508
San Francisco, CA 94107