Cohousing-L Mailing List: HOA income, taxation, and insurance "cans of worms" (was flip taxes)

[Deborah Mensch (deborahmensch]

On 2/12/07, Michael Barrett <mbarrett [at] toast.net> wrote: (in the context of
the thread on flip taxes)

> Does not any payment made to the HOA count as income, and thus be
> potentially liable for taxation?
Please pardon me if this question is naive, but doesn't an HOA receive
income every month in the form of homeowners' fees, and sometimes other
income such as buyout fees for work systems, etc.? Is there something
special about other forms of income that make them more problematic to deal
with? I guess this has come up about payments for classes held in the common
house, donations for guest rooms, and other situations, too.

I am in a new forming community, and the question whether HOAs should shy
away from events with tax consequences (such as having an employee or extra
sources of income) or liability consequences (such as having residents do
physical labor, or neighbor kids play, on the premises) keeps popping up in
cohousing conversations. I'm assuming we will be paying taxes, and probably
carrying workers' comp and liability insurance as part of our HOA insurance
anyway, so where do the problems come in?

I can certainly sympathize with the plight of volunteer bookkeepers if an
action opens a whole new can of worms on accounting or taxes, or with those
who keep up with insurance if an action makes the HOA more expensive to
insure or harder to buy insurance for; but I don't know whether these are
the case. Can anyone enlighten me as to where "ordinary" ends and "new can
of worms" begins? Does it depend on the HOA's legal status?

Thanks much,
Deborah Mensch
Member, Tumblerock forming community, central Colorado
Currently at Pleasant Hill Cohousing, Pleasant Hill, CA