Quote from: notme on May 31, 2013, 02:51:56 AM

Quote from: boltactionz on May 23, 2013, 12:11:15 AM

And when you can figure out a way to legally short the taxman it becomes something really sexy...! (And no, I'm not an accountant or a tax lawyer, LOL!)

Clearly.

Not paying taxes on barter is still illegal. It might be easier to get away with though.
http://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc420.html

I know that not paying taxes on barter is not legal. I'm sorry. My post should have been clearer on that. However, valuations can fluctuate with barter. Is the chicken you are trading for a goat worth $1.50 or $3.75? Or only 50 cents?

To see what I mean, Google "Eduardo Saverin defriends USA".

He moved to Singapore and then renounced US citizenship in the year prior to Facebook's IPO. Because he could not yet sell his stocks on the open market, he got to choose a lower valuation than the IPO price of $38/share. People went nuts because they couldn't see beyond his supposedly saving so many millions of dollars by giving the US the kiss-off.

Truth is, depending on his valuation back when he renounced he may have OVERPAID on his taxes even though everybody thought he was saving money. And I haven't seen Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) at $38/share since the day of the IPO, it tanked like a rock the first few days and weeks. And when you renounce, you file one LAST tax return. If you goof in your valuation you probably don't get to file a do-over in the form of an amendment.

But that's Eddie Saverin.

Average Joe can choose his valuation in a barter, and as long as it's a reasonable one and he can justify it in case of an audit Joe will likely be fine. Barter makes it a not-so-exact science.

Another interesting thing is, one can shop with junk silver and buy things for "way cheaper" because someone might prefer the pre-1965 silver quarters you have in your bag to paper bills or coins of today's US Mint and Federal Reserve.

If you buy a car and offer junk silver to the dealer, (s)he may just let you pay at a discount . . . based on the value of the silver content instead of the face value of the coins. While it does not appear to be savings, when you go to register the car if the sales price is the face value of the coins it's a LOT lower than the silver value. How does this help you? If your vehicle registration fees are based on face value coin price, you pay less upon first registration and less every year thereafter. Meanwhile the dealer who sold you the car can turn around and cash the junk silver in for the full value if (s)he desires . . . or keep it if (s)he thinks the value of silver will go up.