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  • Hendrix Stephansen posted an update 2 years, 1 month ago

    One of the most powerful ways to build an impressive list is to rent a mailing list. A mailing list is a list of people who have willingly agreed to receive marketing information from you. It may be used for product promotion, as in offering a free gift or discount to those who sign up to receive marketing information. Mailing lists can be bought from a variety of sources and are often a good investment when it comes to list building strategies.

    When buying mailing lists, there are several things to keep in mind. First, the cost of the list should be proportionate to the potential audience. For instance, if you are using a list purchased from a list broker, you will be paying for the mailing list as well as a list broker’s commission. If you decided to make your own list from scratch, you will likely need to purchase a quality list from a list broker or other provider. The price of the list should be reasonable and can be purchased for a variety of prices based on the audience and targeted market you are trying to reach.

    Second, you want to make sure you can collect a rent-a-list from a quality provider. A quality mailing list provider should offer a money-back guarantee. Also, a good list provider should allow for the immediate download of new emails no matter what date they are created. An important consideration to keep in mind when renting a mailing list is whether or not you are paying for the mailing list related to unrelated business taxable income.

    As a landlord, if you rent our a mailing list, one important consideration is whether or not the list is considered a personal expense. It is well established that landlords must report any and all expenses related to the rental of its mailing list. This includes the rental fee to the supplier of the mailing list, even if it is a bulk mailing list and not a direct mail list. The reporting requirement of IRS Regulation 7600(b) remains true even if you rent your mailing list to a third party company.

    One potential way for a landlord to treat the rental of its mailing list as an income-luxury event is to treat it as a charitable expense. To apply this concept to the rental of a mailing list, a landlord could attach a copy of the appropriate section of the Crofton address and deduct that amount from the gross income of the landlord. The amount of deduction would depend on the amount of the rental fee paid to the supplier. In this case, the landlord would be treating the mailing list rental fee as an indirect benefit to the landlord. However, a careful analysis of the facts may show that the landlord is actually treating the mailing list rental fee as an directly personal expense.

    Another potential way for a landlord to treat the rental of its mailing list as an income-luxury event is to treat the list rental as a gift that it is renting to the client. For example, a hoteliers might treat a gift from a major hotel manufacturer as an income-luxury event. Similarly, a real estate broker might treat the rental of its mailing list as an income-luxury event. This could be seen as both a gift and an event.

    On the one hand, there are a number of situations where treating a mailing lists rental as an income-luxury event is inappropriate. First, the rental itself may be a gift and the gift does not relate to the services provided by the recipient company to the landlord. Second, the income-luxury nature of the gift can conflict with other requirements of the landlord’s business. Third, there may be a significant cost associated with maintaining the list and maintaining separate mailing lists for different customers. These costs may significantly reduce the profitability of the unrelated business taxable income of the landlord.

    In light of these potential pitfalls, a landlord must be careful not to take the list rental issue to a frivolous court of law. The mere fact that the landlord rents the mailing list to one customer does not give it an exclusive right to do so to another customer. Likewise, the mere fact that the landlord attaches the name of the customer to the list does not give it exclusive rights to do so. In these circumstances, the proper reading would be to treat the list rental as a second property, with an interest in the fair market value of the property based on what the landlord can get for the list, less any other consideration. Finally, if the list rental is not sold to a customer, the landlord must not charge an exorbitant fee for the privilege of using it.

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