Latest posts
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Gift I Bonds: Spread the $10,000 Limit Across Years
Gift I bonds let you buy an I Bond now and deliver it to someone else later, while each person still has a $10,000 per-year purchase limit. What the sources describe is a way to lock in a rate today for bonds delivered later, and a way to spread purchases across years. This post walks…
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No Tax on Tips: Why Crypto Tips Don’t Qualify and How to Keep Your Deduction
The “no tax on tips” deduction can be worth thousands of dollars, and the final regulation is specific about what counts. One detail matters to anyone who gets tipped in crypto: digital assets are excluded from cash tips. This post explains what the regulation says, what a crypto tip means for the deduction in plain…
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The Exemption Everyone Cites for Crypto Payments Doesn’t Actually Apply
Small businesses that want to take crypto payments often hear that a “payment processor exemption” keeps them clear of money transmitter rules. The source documents point to a more useful way to think about it. The exemption has four specific conditions, FinCEN’s 2019 guidance says crypto payment processors generally do not meet them, and the…
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Putting a Crypto ATM in Your Store? Read This First
A crypto ATM can be a simple way for a store to earn lease income from a few square feet of floor space. It also comes with real responsibilities that sit mostly with the operator, and a few choices a store makes up front can keep its own position strong. This post covers how hosts…
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Operating a Crypto Kiosk Isn’t Like Any Other Small Business
A shop that accepts crypto for its own goods is in a different position from a business that runs a crypto kiosk. The federal notice below is the main source I verified, and I label my own reasoning where it appears. The useful news is that the obligations are specific and listed in FinCEN’s own…
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H-1B Crypto Mining Income: Schedule 1 vs Schedule C
If you have H-1B crypto mining income, two separate questions arise: how the income is reported for tax, and what your H-1B work authorization allows. I could not find any authority linking the tax schedule to your H-1B status. This post lays out the verified pieces of each side, give a worked example with assumed…
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H-1B and Crypto: Six Questions to Describe Your Activity
H-1B crypto questions usually start with one thing: whether crypto activity could count as work. I could not find an immigration authority that answers that for crypto, so I won’t tell you what is safe. The six questions in the title come from a labor-law test that I explain below as a thinking tool only.…
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Student Loan Wage Garnishment: Stop It Before It Starts
Student loan wage garnishment means the government can take part of your paycheck directly to repay a defaulted federal student loan, and the encouraging news is that, under 34 CFR 34.4, the Department must mail you a written notice at least 30 days before it starts garnishment proceedings. The most useful thing you can do…
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Grad PLUS Grandfather Rule: Keep Your Old Limits
The Grad PLUS grandfather rule is the best news in this whole story for current graduate students. If you were already enrolled and borrowing before the new caps arrived, you may be able to keep your older loan access, including Grad PLUS, for up to three academic years. In my view, that’s real breathing room,…
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Form I-864 and Crypto — What Sponsors Need to Prove
Affidavit of support is the focus of this guide. A sponsor whose income falls short on Form I-864 can use assets to make up the difference. Whether crypto can serve that role is a question I couldn’t answer from an official source, so this article reports what USCIS’s policy manual says about assets and then…