Blogzarro

Blogzarro Question #23

If you sell your soul to the devil, do you have to declare it on your taxes?

5 Responses to “ “Blogzarro Question #23”

  1. Jefff says:

    It depends on the liquid value of your soul and how you believe you acquired your soul and what value your soul had when you acquired it.

    Section 61 of the Internal Revenue Code defines gross income as “all income from whatever source derived” unless there is a statutory exception to recognition (Sections 101-140). Realization of gain doesn’t manifest until the bargainer has fulfilled all material steps of their side of the bargain.

    So we don’t recognize the gain for tax purposes unless the seller of the soul has materially fulfilled their side of the bargain with the devil, some gain from the sale is not statutorily excepted, and the seller derives measurable present value from the transaction.

    Gain realized = amount realized – adjusted basis.

    Your basis is the value of your soul when you acquired it. The amount realized is the fair market value of your soul at the time you sold it. You would be taxed on the difference between these two, if any difference exists.

    The main difficulty will be calculating your adjusted basis in your soul. If you can calculate the value of your soul at the time you received it, you can probably be taxed on it, because a definite sale is a realization event under IRC regulations.

    However, you could argue that there is no actual gain. Since you are trading your eternal soul for whatever consideration the devil provides you, you could argue to the IRS that it is more like a loan. A loan doesn’t provide you with any actual income because you still owe the debt used as collateral. You have no actual gain.

    Basically, this is an open question. Get a letter ruling from the IRS. It costs about $1000.

  2. Gazz says:

    Take a chance, don’t declare it!

  3. Linda says:

    :)) cool! But if I keep it for myself..I still have to pay the tax for personal goods? :P

  4. vio says:

    noooooo

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

Copyright © 2004-2012. All Rights Reserved.
RSS | Comments RSS | Atom