Today, Verisign announced the increase of their fees for registering/renewing .com/.net domains. Per contract, they are allowed to increase the fees up to 7% annually. No such increase occured in 2009.
My response: big whoopie.
To those domainers among us with no long term memory; there was a time registrations cost $50 per year with a 2 year minimum.
A 50 cent increase in registration/renewal fees means an increase of costs by $50 per 100 domains, $500 per 1,000 domains or $5,000 per 10,000 domains annually.
Renewal fees are qualified business expenses.
Now it’s the time – for those of you that haven’t already done so – to incorporate and take advantage of the benefits of a corporation or an LLC.
At the same time, consider using a CPA professional for doing your taxes as they will assist you with your strategy to maximize expenses and better manage your revenue.
To those domainers with a short memory a judge ruled in 1997 that $15 of that $50 fee was an “illegal tax” brought to you courtesy of a government sanctioned monopoly.
It’s the same dirty situation today.
And before that, registrations were free, so what is your point?
The argument is not about monopolies but whether the 50 cent price increase is a serious matter to lose sleep over.
You just made my point. Registrations were free. So why the rise in price? There is no need. It’s been proven many times that the registries can run for a couple, three dollars.
If you like being sucker than more power to you….but not me. I’ll always fight any price raise above where we are now.
Welcome to the real world, kid, where things have a price tag. As for being a sucker – I already pass the cost of renewing my domains to the American taxpayer 😀 So it doesn’t matter if they go up 50 cents or 5 dollars a piece, it’s a business expense to me.