Tax advice : Offered sweat equity in US startup.

[WordIsBond]

The going rate for contract developers on US startups is about $100 an hour.

There is no such thing as a 'going rate'. The US economy is immense and widely diverse, and rates are drastically different in NYC or, say, Alabama.

a) they have no experience of running successful startups / have no money.
b) If they do have money, they think what they're doing is so risky they're not willing to take any risks with their own cash.
c) No one trusts them or the idea enough to invest in it at this stage ( not uncommon for pre-revenue startups).

or maybe d) they are spending their money on equipment / materials / sales / advertising. or any number of e), f), or g) reasons, which will vary from industry to industry and across locations.

I'm not sure what they expect you to do in 8 hours a week.

So if you don't know what he'll be doing you probably don't know what the rate should be or why he's being paid in shares rather than cash. This is fairly basis logic.

[krytonsheep]

There is no such thing as a 'going rate'. The US economy is immense and widely diverse, and rates are drastically different in NYC or, say, Alabama.

The $100 dollar an hour is a rough figure I know good UK/EU contractors are being paid to work remotely for US startups. Obviously some will get paid more, some less depending on area/skill etc.
It's just a way of putting a rough value on a contribution. E.g. 8 hours a week for 48 weeks a year for 3 years @ $100 an hour = well over $100k worth of work for a small amount of potential shares.

It looks like curious11 is well aware it's a long shot, I was just making a point it sounds dodgy. Whether it's for fun, or learning, if it's for someone else then my approach is YouTube

One tip is to see what kind of track record the people have behind the startup on crunchbase.