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F.A.Q.

Q: HOW DO I JOIN CATSKILLS TIME?
A: Come to the next monthly potluck meeting (listed in the EVENTS sidebar). If you can’t make that, send an email to catskillstime@gmail.com to make alternative plans with an administrator. Once you’ve joined, you’ll be granted access to the members’ site, where you can create a profile and start time banking.

Q: CAN A BUSINESS JOIN?
A: Yes—as long as the business has something to offer that can be valued using hours. Service businesses—plumbers, dentists, lawyers, health providers, landscapers—will have no trouble “paying” an hour for an hour. Also, if your business is primarily production-based but you sometimes rent out your facility to others (like a commercial kitchen or a meat processing plant), you can offer those rental hours as a service. Also, a business with a nice, big meeting area can earn Catskill Hours by hosting one of the monthly potlucks. If your business only produces goods, there is the possibility of offering them based on the hours that went in to their creation, but this is complicated, so we urge everyone to try to think of services to offer. A proprietor of a business can always bank hours for the business by performing non-business-related services.

Q: CAN AN OWNER JOIN SEPARATELY FROM HIS OR HER BUSINESS?
A: Yes, you can join as an individual and also join for your business. But when it comes to voting at the meetings, businesses don’t get a separate vote in addition to that of their proprietor.

Q: CAN I OFFER GOODS IN EXCHANGE FOR SERVICES?
A: We have done some research about ways that other time banks have found to incorporate goods, and these will be discussed at the next meeting. For now, only goods that can be valued as labor-hours can be included, and it’s always preferable to stick to services if possible.

Q: WHAT ABOUT THE IRS?
A: The IRS has ruled that time banking is completely tax-exempt, so you can trade freely in hours without worrying about Uncle Sam. The basic reasons for this finding are:

  • Absence of a commission.
  • Cash cannot be used to buy credits or eliminate a debt.
  • The predominance of ‘like-for-like’ services in the exchange.
  • The equal valuation given to all hours.
For more details on the rulings, go here.

Q: BUT BARTERING IS SOMETIMES TAXABLE, ISN’T IT?
A: Yes. But with barter, a market value can still be placed on the objects or services being bartered. Also, unlike with barter, when you earn an hour using the time bank, nobody else is contractually obliged to do anything in return. These and other differences have caused the IRS to differentiate between time banking and barter, and to declare time banking to be non taxable.
Q: DOES AND HOUR-FOR-AN-HOUR REALLY MEAN THAT A DOCTOR’S HOUR IS WORTH THE SAME AS THAT OF A DAY-LABORER?
A: Yes. And at time banks across the country and the world, doctors, dentists, and other professionals choose to participate on these terms. Time banking does not reflect the market as we know it; it posits a different way for communities to work together.

Q: WHO DESIGNED YOUR BRILLIANT LOGO AND BANNER?
A: Uber-talented Catskills Time member David Rainbird—for Catskill Hours, of course! The logo features a two-person saw, an early technology of cooperation dating back to the Romans.