What counts as On Duty Time? Passive income questions?

I saw a few comments in another thread on this forum, in a thread that wasn't about this topic but the conversation between a few posters veered towards what I want to talk about here.

Here is that thread where I got the idea for my thread that I'm making here now:

Need to drive nights

Before I start, I want to say I'm not being argumentative towards anybody in this thread, we are all simply having a good and interesting discussion about HOS and the modern day and age.

Okay so with that out of the way, in that other thread, there were some posters who I'm pretty sure are mid 50's and up. They argued that trading stocks needs to be logged as On Duty time for HOS.

Now before anybody gets mad at me, the only reason I mentioned that the posters seemed to be boomers/older demographics, wasn't to insult them, but to make the point that I think some of you older folks might be "a little behind the times" as far as financial trading goes.

Long gone are the days where you have to call up a broker, pay extortionate amounts of money to make a single trade and wait hours (or even days) for the trade to go through.

Now, these brokerage firms all have apps on the phones where you can easily trade stocks with the click of a button and trades are basically free. Crypto is pretty popular as well, though more complicated than trading stocks with a brokerage account.

I think some of you older folks might be surprised as to how many younger people are investing in crypto or trading with stocks.

So this brings me to the point of discussion:

At what point is "extra income" considered logbook worthy, where you need to record On Duty Time?

Because the current HOS rules seem outdated and only in reference to W2 jobs, 1099 jobs or if someone is paying you for a service. I have never read anywhere where the HOS says anything about passive or semi-passive income and furthermore, what even COUNTS as passive income.

I want to quote forum member Ridgeline from the other thread (quotes in italics):

So just a legal issue, if you are working this "second" job and you are in violation of HOS, the hours worked goes against your clock. This means if you get into an accident, and it goes to court, the ambulance chasing POS lawyer will find your second income, and use it against you plus the company.

You can't hide this stuff.

Ridgeline said this in reference to someone saying they were "swing trading."

Correct me if I'm wrong, but there's nothing in the HOS that states the rules about "passive income" - Such as stocks, real estate investments, business investments where you act as a consultant and financier/investor but aren't day to day hands on managing, etc etc.

Therefore, it's of my belief and understanding of the HOS that passive income doesn't have to be required as On Duty Time and that includes stocks. Only W2 jobs, 1099 jobs and jobs where someone is paying you for a service are the only income revenue streams where you would have to log "On Duty Time" for.

Now in the other thread, Ridgeline and others were arguing that stock income needed to be logged as On Duty Time.

To that I say this:

1. For those of you arguing that income from stocks needs to be logged as On Duty Time, then what type of stock accounts are you specifying here?
- Taxable accounts? Okay, then do you then specify whether "long term gains" (holding a stock for 1 year or more) or "short term gains" (holding stocks less than a year) constitute as having to log On Duty Time?
- To my point above, for the IRS they don't care if you are day trading 100 times per day or trading a stock once a month, it's all "short term gains" to them if the trade is 1 year or less (I won't get into "wash sales" here as that's only relevant to the IRS and not to this discussion).
- What about crypto stocks, which are taxable accounts? How do you handle that with HOS?

Or are you guys trying to imply that trading in your Roth 401k/and or Roth IRA retirement accounts should count as "On Duty Time"? Because Roth accounts have already been taxed, so you're not going to get taxed on income from Roth withdrawals at later dates during your retirement.

What about trading in your traditional 401k or traditional IRA? These accounts have not been taxed yet - Does trading with these retirement accounts count as "On Duty Time" for trading in a retirement account?

Getting away from stocks, what about real estate? Where is the line drawn at real estate on whether it's passive income or not? If you hire a property manager but you need to keep in touch with your property manager, is that considered On Duty time? Is it considered on duty time if you need to call a plumber for one of your rentals? Etc etc?

You all see what I mean, where is the line in the sand drawn with having to record HOS as it pertains to passive or semi passive income? The HOS are not specific at all when it comes to this, on what should count as On Duty Time and what shouldn't. And to the best of my knowledge, they don't specify a difference between passive, semi passive or non passive income either.

As far as I can tell, it's only W2, 1099 and someone paying you directly for a service that would require you, as a CDL truck driver, to log that time as "On Duty".

Furthermore, I have never heard of a single court case where a passive or semi passive secondary income, including stock trading, was counted against a driver in concerns to his HOS in the court of law.

You would think there would be at least one news story about a trucker who was deemed by the judge or jury to have "caused a wreck because of secondary passive/semi passive income(s)", but yet I can't find a single article or example of it.

To end, I want to say that if anybody here can bring hard and concrete evidence to prove me wrong in my interpretation of the HOS rules (that On Duty Time does not include secondary passive/semi passive/investment incomes), I would be very happy to see it so that I can properly educate myself on the manner.

 

What is this supposed to mean?

 

But you can easily find news articles or cases where they state alcohol, drug use, phone use, etc etc.

Is it not reasonable to then expect to find something about secondary income sources for court cases then?

I can't find those cases. Would you mind linking them, or any other case where stocks, real estate or business investments in relation to HOS were used against a truck driver in the court of law or in a lawsuit/accident, etc etc?

 

Common sense according to who? A jury or judge?

If that's what you mean, do you think the DOT purposely kept the HOS vague in terms of being "on duty" for secondary sources of income such as stocks, real estate and business investments?