MA'ASER ON POINTS???

[Smokey Joe Robinson]

Sure, fly 20 flights in F and stay in $5,000/night 5 star hotel suites.  Easy.

You should open a seminary, youd rake it in...Give a class in CC Mileage, Travel Concierge, IRS Laws and Halacha 
How long was that trip?

[Dan]

You should open a seminary, youd rake it in...Give a class in CC Mileage, Travel Concierge, IRS Laws and Halacha 
How long was that trip?

Rake it in?  We are dealing with yidden you know, right?

http://www.dansdeals.com/forums/index.php?topic=3568

[Deal Guy]

Again, let's hypothetically say I am.
I also just burned roughly 560,000 miles and 160,000 hotel points on a month-long RTW trip worth roughly $250,000 at FMV.
It's a trip that I never would have taken in a million years if it wasn't free.
Care to chime in on what I "owe" for the trip?

Just  add up all the miles and donate a 10th to tzedakka.

[Chaikel]

That's very subjective to the whims of the moment.  And it's an impossible situation as no travel agent will ever call me up offering me such a trip for $1,000 as I would say its a scam and not bother going.
If it wasn't for the miles the bottom line is I wouldn't have gone.

That was obviously a hypothetical. I can't imagine that for $100 there is anyone on this forum (of for that matter is the US+) that would turn down a RTW in F plus hotels. Getting the exact number may be hard, but there are businesses that have much harder time figuring out ma'aser owed. you have expenses, money re-invested, slush, and much more. Without speaking to a rav I don't believe anyone here is qualified to decide what to pay or not. as I originally wrote YLORMV, but not every guy who went yeshiva's sevoros count as a LOR's psak. Don't hate the player, hate the game

[Dan]

Just  add up all the miles and donate a 10th to tzedakka.

There's no kuntz in being able to pasken halachos l'chumra like that for everything. 

[Deal Guy]

There's no kuntz in being able to pasken halachos l'chumra like that for everything. 

I'm not paskening. I'm neutral here. I'm just saying that if there is a need for ma'aser, you don't need to make whole calculations what you did with your points, and at what value you spent them. All you have to do is add up all you earned points via signup, and take off a tenth.

[Chaikel]

I'm not paskening. I'm neutral here. I'm just saying that if there is a need for ma'aser, you don't need to make whole calculations what you did with your points, and at what value you spent them. All you have to do is add up all you earned points via signup, and take off a tenth.

Which could, at times, be 10 times the value of the psak of my rav

[Deal Guy]

Which could, at times, be 10 times the value of the psak of my rav

Im just making a easy calculation.

[Chaikel]

Im just making a easy calculation.

In Dan's case it's closer to 100 times. You can make easy calculations by giving every penny you earn, as well. There are strongly worded Chazals and gemoros about ppl who are just machmir because its more convenient.

[yare]

i was wondering when a thread like this would pop up... definitely hits a lot of people in a hard place.    anyway, i've recently been trying to figure this out myself, interesting to see the different things people have been told.     i discussed it with an lor, and what came out was that on points sold i would have to take maaser. on the rest he was unsure because he wasn't sure how to define points earned through flying/spend/sign-up bonuses.  and i'm not sure how to classify them myself.     what seemed to me is that points earned flying and through spend are rebates, and he was noteh to agree with that.     the real question was sign up bonuses.  dan calls them rebates based on future spend. and while the irs might have to consider them that because they can't quantify if you actually make future spend on your card or not, in reality if you sign up for a card, get 50k points after first purchase and then close the card, i think it's hard to rationalize that as a rebate.    if you get 50k points after $1000 in spend and then close the card it's also hard to call it a rebate, but i guess it gets gray.  at what point of spend can you honestly say it's a rebate?         

[cbarkly]

I asked a shaila and bottom line is that you would give maaser on any money received from the sales of your points.  If I sell 100k BA points for $1,000 (for example), I would need to give minimum $100 for maaser (and according to the G"RA, $200). 

I did not ask about any other scenarios are they were/are unapplicable to me at this time.

[leeboy]

Remember that Office Monochrome Printer deal on staples last year? It was selling on all the websites for $250, but I actually got paid $30 to buy it. I asked my rov and he said that it goes based on FMV, so if I were to donate it then I could count it for $250 worth of maaser. (Of course, one might argue that the printer netted me $30 and $250 worth of maaser, for a total of $280, so I would also have to pay $28 of maaser from that...)

But to me and maybe even other people that ARE interested in buying a printer its worth is much less than the Msrp
Al Achas Kama Vekama to a charity that gets thousands of printers every year, Whenever people buys a new printer they think they are going to give their old Piece to tzedaka

[aycee]

Again, let's hypothetically say I am.
I also just burned roughly 560,000 miles and 160,000 hotel points on a month-long RTW trip worth roughly $250,000 at FMV.
It's a trip that I never would have taken in a million years if it wasn't free.
Care to chime in on what I "owe" for the trip?

Good question Dan.

And Chaikel, where on earth did you get that from, that he must pay what he normally would have paid for the trip or what the trip was worth to him??

As noted above, Reb Shlom Zalman held that if one receives a gift he must give ma'aser on it. Also noted above is what RSZA and Dayan Fisher held regarding a gift received and the person has no cash to give to ma'aser on hand.
However, brought down in the pesakim of RSZA is that if one receives a gift and does have cash on hand he should give ma'aser right away using the valuation of "basar bezol" - that is the price of the item had he went to a store and purchased it right now minus one third, ten percent of that price would go to ma'aser.
Now, that is by a gift. But I can't think of any reason that the valuation would be different here. That is, of course, IF one is mechuyav to give ma'aser on points in the first place.

[aycee]

Just out of curiosity, is there any reason that people are keeping the names of the Rabbonim to whom they spoke with anonymous?

Why not say the name of the Rav? Especially if he is "a rosh kollel of a well known choshen mishpat kollel in jerusalem"

[Dan]

I asked a shaila and bottom line is that you would give maaser on any money received from the sales of your points.  If I sell 100k BA points for $1,000 (for example), I would need to give minimum $100 for maaser (and according to the G"RA, $200). 

I did not ask about any other scenarios are they were/are unapplicable to me at this time.

The IRS has the same shita and frankly its quite logical as I explained earlier.
Technically on selling miles you would owe federal+state+municipal+social security+medicare+self employment taxes and then you would owe maiser on 10% of the remainder.
Hence why I personally like to use my miles and enjoy them on trips I could otherwise never afford.

[Chaikel]

And Chaikel, where on earth did you get that from, that he must pay what he normally would have paid for the trip or what the trip was worth to him??

As I said from the rav I spoke to

Just out of curiosity, is there any reason that people are keeping the names of the Rabbonim to whom they spoke with anonymous?

Why not say the name of the Rav? Especially if he is "a rosh kollel of a well known choshen mishpat kollel in jerusalem"

I'm keeping it off the forums, because I have a feeling he'd rather not have his name plastered around the internet. If you want to know who it is you can PM me, or just ask any adom gadol in Jerusalem, who to ask complicated Chosen Mishpat shailos, and you'll have his name.

He specifically discussed all the points made here. Rebates, presents, etc. We discussed individually, and at length, each of the 4 methods that I am aware of earning miles. 1. Sign up bonuses 2. Referral bonuses 3. Credit card spending 4. Flights/Hotel stay.

In short he came out that all are most probably chayav in ma'aser. I have to go man a grill right now (I'm learning Yore daya ) I will try to go into a little more detail about his psak later. I do not believe that anyone here has enough knowledge in the pertaining halachos to argue with him. If you believe it is different, ask you LOR. yare and others did, it's not that hard. You can be somech on whoever you wish, but people should be careful not to matir something if you don't know the halachos well, they are very complicated. If someone decides to rely on a heter they saw on DDF, and it turns out to be wrong, there may be a serious issue of choteh umachti.

[Chaikel]

I should really clarify the he said a MR can have different halachos. I will expound shortly

[Smokey Joe Robinson]

Rake it in?  We are dealing with yidden you know, right?

http://www.dansdeals.com/forums/index.php?topic=3568

and Touro deals with yidden too, yet they charge 14K a year tuition, and everyones paying it like good boys and girls.

[Learner-Earner]

But to me and maybe even other people that ARE interested in buying a printer its worth is much less than the Msrp
Al Achas Kama Vekama to a charity that gets thousands of printers every year, Whenever people buys a new printer they think they are going to give their old Piece to tzedaka

Who cares what its worth to you? A printer has market value and he could sell it online or elsewhere.  If he chooses to give it to charity than it makes sense that he should get market value off his ma'asar( along with a tax break).  After all a charity that receives a $250 printer is able to get $250 of use out of it either by selling it or using it.

[leeboy]

Who cares what its worth to you? A printer has market value and he could sell it online or elsewhere.  If he chooses to give it to charity than it makes sense that he should get market value off his ma'asar( along with a tax break).  After all a charity that receives a $250 printer is able to get $250 of use out of it either by selling it or using it.

"market value", "msrp" and What it could sell is can be 100s apart. Point was, can you donate an object and deduct the value for maaser? if yes how much, the price you bought it for, the value now (how do you estimate that)or how much you can sell it for?