Ebay totally sucks. Be careful

[pimped mag 01]

No one's paying more tax than they owe with this change. The tax rules are literally the same. It just requires you to keep better books, which is, let's be honest, extremely annoying for a hobby and frankly is targeting the wrong people. If the govt wants to collect more income taxes, they should audit bigger companies, not mow down the little guys.

I agree 1,000%. Stop war on the middle and lower class, and go after the scumbags, especially all of the insider trading politicians and the rest the real criminals. I can't speak for other states, but if you're in self-employed in New Jersey and you're honest you'll go broke within a year.

PS, I know you're technically not paying more in tax. I was just making fun of our ridiculous tax code. For example you buy a new car and you pay tax on it but then when you sell that car to another person that person also pays tax on it. I'm just simply saying I don't understand how you could tax something that's already been taxed once. Department of redundancy department :)

[Xyxyll]

I agree 1,000%. Stop war on the middle and lower class, and go after the scumbags, especially all of the insider trading politicians and the rest the real criminals. I can't speak for other states, but if you're in self-employed in New Jersey and you're honest you'll go broke within a year.

PS, I know you're technically not paying more in tax. I was just making fun of our ridiculous tax code. For example you buy a new car and you pay tax on it but then when you sell that car to another person that person also pays tax on it. I'm just simply saying I don't understand how you could tax something that's already been taxed once. Department of redundancy department :)

Sales tax is double taxation, though I guess if they got rid of it, we'd just be paying more in state income taxes. Those that buy less stuff would be carrying the tax burden of big spenders.

Sales tax on second hand goods though is crooked.

[pimped mag 01]

Sales tax is double taxation, though I guess if they got rid of it, we'd just be paying more in state income taxes. Those that buy less stuff would be carrying the tax burden of big spenders.

Sales tax on second hand goods though is crooked.

That's the biggest problem I have with it. Not so much myself because I mainly use eBay for purchasing but what about the smaller people on Etsy, eBay or any site like similar that flip items to make their living. I understand going after multi-billion dollar corporations but when you go after Sally homemaker for selling her crafts online and lowering the threshold by such a degree it really speaks volumes in my opinion.

[Xyxyll]

That's the biggest problem I have with it. Not so much myself because I mainly use eBay for purchasing but what about the smaller people on Etsy, eBay or any site like similar that flip items to make their living. I understand going after multi-billion dollar corporations but when you go after Sally homemaker for selling her crafts online and lowering the threshold by such a degree it really speaks volumes in my opinion.

Sadly we're not going to see tax relief for those folks by either party.

[pimped mag 01]

I know and I agree. I was black pilled a long time ago but a boy can dream I guess haha

-Brett-

[rawbutter]

How is lowering the threshold from $20,000 to $600 a good thing?

I never said that it was.

That's the biggest problem I have with it. Not so much myself because I mainly use eBay for purchasing but what about the smaller people on Etsy, eBay or any site like similar that flip items to make their living.

If you're flipping things to make a living, that's income. It doesn't matter if it's on eBay or Etsy or a garage sale. It's still income if you're selling stuff for more than you paid for it. It's also still income even if you're not the primary breadwinner in the family.

Again, just keep your receipts. When you report this extra income on your taxes (from selling a marker, for instance), you will also be able to report the expenses (from buying said marker, for instance). Doesn't matter if the buying and selling didn't happen in the same year. Most of the time they cancel each other out.

[going_home]

I stopped selling on eBay 15+ years ago.

But eBay's my preferred purchase spot.

I don't do Amazon.

Selling, Craigslist or PBN.....

[cougar20th]

Its really nothing new. Massachusetts(who would have guessed) has had the 600$ thing for several years now if not close to a decade. I luckily moved out before. But got to deal with it because I used to ship things to the office in mass.

They are really just finally forcing people into reporting their income. Those rules haven't changes. Just nobody was doing it.

[wetwrks]

If I bought something new...I paid taxes on it. The government does not deserve taxes on it when I sell it. And If I bought something used...they got their taxes when the seller bought it.

[Tunaman]

People were selling things for 1.00 then adding the shipping for 799.00 to keep the final value fee low. Ebay stopped this by including shipping charges in their final value fees. The point I was trying to make is that if you add up the 12.55%+.30 that they charge and add shipping into the final value it no longer is any kind of good deal. Add about 20% to your total you want to get out of it.

[Tunaman]

If I bought something new...I paid taxes on it. The government does not deserve taxes on it when I sell it. And If I bought something used...they got their taxes when the seller bought it.

I agree. I wish it worked like that.

[rawbutter]

People were selling things for 1.00 then adding the shipping for 799.00 to keep the final value fee low. Ebay stopped this by including shipping charges in their final value fees. The point I was trying to make is that if you add up the 12.55%+.30 that they charge and add shipping into the final value it no longer is any kind of good deal. Add about 20% to your total you want to get out of it.

I do get what you're saying, and I agree with you. It definitely sucks. I used to always assume I'd lose about 10% on eBay. Thanks for doing the math and updating those numbers for all of us. It sucks you happened to learn the hard way.

I wonder if eBay is doing this to discourage people from using it like a store front. eBay was originally designed to be an online yard sale, where people got rid of stuff they didn't need anymore (and didn't expect to make much profit on). But gradually it turned into another serious marketplace like Amazon.

Really makes me wonder how many people have used eBay in the past just because the site didn't report this income before. How many people were using the site to help them commit tax fraud? eBay makes billions of dollars every year just from their fees. That probably means that the people selling there have probably sold trillions of dollars worth of goods every year. If most of them weren't bothering to report that income, that's a LOT of lost tax revenue.

Still, it does suck for the little guys like us. I also mostly stopped using eBay about two years ago, for the record, for the same reasons you all described. I still use it occasionally for "yard sale" type items that I don't care how much money I get for it, but for paintball guns, I sell those on Facebook or the forums.

[RossT]

If I bought something new...I paid taxes on it. The government does not deserve taxes on it when I sell it. And If I bought something used...they got their taxes when the seller bought it.

I'm a lifelong Republican and about an economically libertarian as they come, but I'm also a Certified Public Accountant and Lawyer (JD with Certificate in Taxation). I see first hand that people will cheat the system when given the opportunity. This is a good change. It does not increase anyone's tax burden, unless you were already evading taxes. I work a W-2 job [lawyer for Government; don't shoot me], but I also do taxes on the side for friends and family. Guess what? I keep a set of books and report all the money I receive, even cash, and sign the returns as a paid preparer.

If you buy something new and use it, typically it is worth less when you sell it, and when Sales Price < Basis in Item = no income tax. The government does not care one bit about these people, and the law is not attempting to make them pay taxes.

The target of this rule is obviously resellers, flippers, and people that make things for resale. All of these activities are business activities, and keeping an accurate set of books is appropriate.

I don't have stats to prove this, but I would bet everything I own that income tax evasion is rampant among shoe resellers, game console resellers, and those thrift store flippers and Pokemon traders that clog up my Reels feed. Keep in mind that a lot of these people are not only evading income tax, they are evading Soc. Security, Medicare, and Unemployment taxes because these activities are their business not a hobby.

Requiring online marketplaces, like Ebay and StockX, to report sales numbers only levels the playing field. The government is going to get its money from someone, unless we can keep running multi trillion dollar deficits without the world collapsing on itself.

[Tunaman]

I'm a lifelong Republican and about an economically libertarian as they come, but I'm also a Certified Public Accountant and Lawyer (JD with Certificate in Taxation). I see first hand that people will cheat the system when given the opportunity. This is a good change. It does not increase anyone's tax burden, unless you were already evading taxes. I work a W-2 job [lawyer for Government; don't shoot me], but I also do taxes on the side for friends and family. Guess what? I keep a set of books and report all the money I receive, even cash, and sign the returns as a paid preparer.

If you buy something new and use it, typically it is worth less when you sell it, and when Sales Price < Basis in Item = no income tax. The government does not care one bit about these people, and the law is not attempting to make them pay taxes.

The target of this rule is obviously resellers, flippers, and people that make things for resale. All of these activities are business activities, and keeping an accurate set of books is appropriate.

I don't have stats to prove this, but I would bet everything I own that income tax evasion is rampant among shoe resellers, game console resellers, and those thrift store flippers and Pokemon traders that clog up my Reels feed. Keep in mind that a lot of these people are not only evading income tax, they are evading Soc. Security, Medicare, and Unemployment taxes because these activities are their business not a hobby.

Requiring online marketplaces, like Ebay and StockX, to report sales numbers only levels the playing field. The government is going to get its money from someone, unless we can keep running multi trillion dollar deficits without the world collapsing on itself.

If the government would stop waste and fraud with the money it already receives from us then maybe we all would be paying about 1/2 of what we pay now. I have no sympathy for this government which is growing larger and more abusive every day. You voted for it...I did not. I think we have something like 9000 government agencies now. They are largest employer in the US. That needs to change. That is not sitting well with me.

[nak81783]

Seems like the trend is toward modern monetary theory, so why does the government need to tax at all? Oh wait, 40 year high inflation. Oops...