Personal Taxes

You may be treated as actively participating if for example you participate in making management decisions or arrange for others to provide services. Examples of management decisions are, approving new tenants, deciding on rental terms, approving capital or repair expenditures and other similar decisions.

Generally not. Rental income from real estate is not considered self-employment income subject to self-employment tax. The exception to this is if you are considered a real estate dealer or income from a rental business where substantial services are rendered to the occupant.

If you only gave one lecture and only plan to give occasional lectures then that income is not subject to self-employment tax. If you actively seek lecture engagements and give them with reasonable regularity then your lecture fees are treated as income subject to self-employment taxes.

Yes. Income earned as a consultant is subject to self-employment taxes.

Generally, most babysitters are not employees of the parents they are providing babysitting services for, unless they are employees of a daycare or childcare center.
Self-employed babysitters file tax returns using the 1040 Schedule C and SE to report their earnings.
Depending upon the babysitter's tax liabilities, the babysitter may be required to remit quarterly estimated taxes.

A copyright protects creative works of authorship that are fixed in a tangible form. A copyright gives its owner the right to control how that work is used, including the right to reproduce the work and make derivative forms of it. A work is protected the moment it is produced in tangible form. Only works that are registered with the U.S. Copyright Office are entitled to full protection. Registering your copyright to a work is a straightforward process. You have to fill out a form, attach a copy of the work and pay the registration fee (as of 10/2000 = $30. You can go to the U.S. governments Copyright Office's web site to get the appropriate form.

A Trademark is like a copyright. The trademarks protect an owner's work from unscrupulous business practices. Unlike copyrights, trademarks protect a product's identity from being copied. A trademark is a word, phrase, symbol or design, or combination of them which identifies the source and quality of a business product. The most effective way to secure nationwide ownership to a trademark is to register it with the Patent and Trademark Office. You can also register your trademark with the state or states in which you use your trademark. The benefits of state registration vary from state to state, but at a minimum, state registration puts others on notice that you are claiming rights to a mark in a certain area.

A service mark is the same as a trademark except that it identifies and distinguishes a service rather than a tangible product. Usually, a trademark for goods appears on the product itself or on its packaging and a service mark appears in advertising for the services. The terms trademark or mark are used commonly to refer to both trademarks and service marks.

Securing a federally registered trademark usually takes several months. It can be done without an attorney, but you should strongly thin about speaking with one. Generally, the Patent and Trademark Office charges between $100 and $400 per class of goods or services. You may also want to speak with your local CPA about your trademark requirements.