Last month, the U.S. Tax Court held in Ward v. Commissioner that payments to a taxpayer from the taxpayer's S corporation (“S corp”) were wages, not distributions of profit. Lateesa Ward is an attorney who formed a small law firm organized as an S corporation. Generally speaking, the owners of an S corp are taxed on their pro rata shares [...]
Last week, the US Supreme Court decided Google LLC v. Oracle America, Inc., a copyright infringement case. Oracle owns a copyright in Java SE, a computer platform that uses the Java computer programming language. In 2005, Google acquired Android and wanted to build a new software platform for mobile devices. So that programmers familiar with the Java programming language would [...]
You may have heard about the “Satan Shoes” created by rapper Lil Nas X in collaboration with the MSCHF clothing brand. The limited-edition shoes, which began as ordinary Nike Air Max 97 running shoes, sold out in less than one minute despite costing $1,018 a pair. In addition to the Nike swoosh on the side and tongue of each shoe, [...]
The Importance of Promptly Registering Your Copyrights You may have heard there’s no need to register your copyright because it’s automatically protected. But this is only half the story—you can’t enforce your copyright without either a certificate of registration or a denial of registration from the Copyright Office. Plus, there are a lot of reasons to register all of your [...]
Whether you're an employer or an employee, it's important for you to know about the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) guidelines relating to religious discrimination. The law prohibits covered employers from refusing to recruit, hire or promote individuals of a certain religion, imposing stricter promotion requirements for persons of a certain religion, and imposing more or different work requirements on [...]
In troubled times like these when we’re more aware of our own mortality, you may be wondering what will happen to your small business after your death. Now is a good time to begin the process of “succession planning.” Surveys show that while most small-business owners plan to sell their businesses to fund their retirement, few have written succession plans. [...]
It is believed that either Benjamin Franklin or Mark Twain said “Nothing is certain except for death and taxes.” Not having appropriate estate planning documents to address both of these certainties is a mistake. The fact is that we don't know when we're going to die. Nor do we know when we might become incapacitated due to an accident or [...]
Many small businesses start out as sole proprietorships or partnerships, usually because they’re the simplest to get up and running. For most businesses, though, the small amount of extra time and expense involved in setting up a corporation or limited liability company (LLC) will be well worth it. The most important benefit of doing business as a corporation or LLC [...]
Businesses often want to have a slogan that describes what they’re selling, but in order to be protectable as a trademark, the slogan has to be “distinctive.” That is, it must be used to identify the source of the product or service. If it does not, the slogan “fails to function” as a mark. The Trademark Manual of Examining Procedure [...]
Did you know that your failure to retain all relevant materials after litigation is “reasonably anticipated” could result in you being fined or sanctioned by the court? You may even lose the case as a result of failure to preserve evidence. In one cautionary example, a federal court imposed a $10,000 fine on defendants who failed to preserve relevant text [...]
