3 ms·

My wife is a CPA, and now by reflex when I see a story like this I think of the tax consequences. Do you have to count products and event tickets as income and

• freehunter 8y ago
  Yes, anything that's given as a promotional item is considered income, which is one reason branded events/swag often include the equivalent dollar value. There is a line you can draw though. If you're making deductions on travel expenses or cost of attending an event, you should probably declare any swag you get at that event as income. If you're not writing off the cost of the event, you probably don't need to worry about it unless you're also getting cash or something extraordinarily valuable. Same thing with anything you're given for free in exchange for writing a review of it. If a company sends you something and you write a review about it, regardless of if money changes hands, the value of that item is considered taxable income. But if it just shows up at your door unsolicited and you ignore it and the company never gets their review, then it's just an unsolicited gift. And you should probably send it back. We have a whole file cabinet drawer dedicated to keeping track of "free" stuff we get so we can declare it on our taxes.