Filing Taxes Question HELP

[charizardtax]

Hello,

I had around $25,000 in ebay sales. 90% of them I lost money on, I buy items just to have them for a while then sell them off for the same price or less mostly just to build up my eBay page and get good feedback. I have OVER 500 transactions this year. 

I tried going the sale of personal items route and made it through January after 3 hours. I am panicking because I cannot do this myself. Even if I hired someone, would they be willing to comb through 500 transactions from eBay to my debit card, how much would that cost, how would I provide them with all that info?

I don’t even care anymore. I just want the easiest way to do it and I’m done with eBay. I ordered my transaction history report from eBay. Is there a way to file this income without having to go through every single transaction? I feel like I’m already being audited. I don’t care if I have to pay the tax on the income even if I didn’t make money on it. Also, can I file this as a hobby?

[charizardtax]

Edit: it would cost $3000 to just pay the tax on the income. Nevermind I cannot go that route. 

[monica-sells]

I seriously doubt you will find your immediate answers here......

There are a lot of available 'help' pages and 'guidelines' for you to learn from, but it will take a little effort (which it appears you are unwilling to do)

We’ll send your Form 1099-K with the information you’ve used to register your account, in accordance with IRS recommendations. For more information, visit Understanding your Form 1099-K - opens in new window or tab on the IRS website

or intuit:

https://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tips/self-employment-taxes/a-tax-filing-factsheet-for-ebay-sellers/L...

[charizardtax]

Going through over 500 transactions is not a “little effort” lol. You have 13 sales lmao. Thanks for nothing! 

[readabouthorses]

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@charizardtax wrote:

Going through over 500 transactions is not a “little effort” lol. You have 13 sales lmao. Thanks for nothing! 

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Here's your problem. You should have been doing this on a monthly basis instead of waiting to try to do it all at once for the entire year. It would be just a simple accounting system that would calculate everything and keep track of your purchases, sales and expenses.

[slippinjimmy]

Get a list of all the items you have sold.

Go down the list and assign a cost value, the value needs to "reasonable" but doesn't need to be absolutely accurate.

Add of the total.

Now you have a cost of goods number and can proceed to file your tax return.

If you happen to get an audit the list may not be sufficient, the auditor may want to revalue your declared cost of goods unless you can provide documentation proving you cost basis.

The audit rate for Individual tax returns is extremely low:

https://www.irs.gov/statistics/compliance-presence

Even the audit rate for Sole Proprietorship's is under 5% for retail businesses.

Nobody else can do the grunt work unless you provide them with every single detail of information and if you have  done that then you can easily file the return yourself.

[fern*wood]

I keep track of my deductions all year and print monthly reports from ebay.   There are several ebay reports you can pull to get yearly totals.   Many things like my mileage and purchases, I manually keep myself in notebooks.

[dbfolks166mt]

     I you had that much in sales you should have a 1099-K from eBay which they also would have sent to the IRS. The IRS is not interested in every single detail of every transaction unless you get audited then maybe. You should be able to pull your gross sales from the eBay transaction report as well as your selling fees, refunds, shipping cost (if you purchased your labels through eBay) and any other selling expenses. These will go on your Schedule C. The rest of your expenses, mainly the COGS, you will have to pull together from your receipts. You can also deduct mileage, packing supplies/materials and several other business expenses but you will have to gather those expenses yourself. 

     If you actually had a net loss on your business activities that may help offset other tax liabilities but the IRS is pretty specific on when and how this applies. I would suggest you talk to a tax professional you would need to disclose more financial information than you would want to post on a public forum. 

[monica-sells]

Sorry....did not mean to be confrontational at all....

just went off your quote....

"...I don’t even care anymore. I just want the easiest way to do it and I’m done with eBay...."

that being said...all the information you should need was in the 2 links I provided...

You did not have to "order" a transaction history report, the basic information is available here:

https://www.ebay.com/sh/fin/reportslanding

just dial up the report for last year...

Honestly, I could get through 500 transactions in about 2 hours with no previous preparation. It is not a daunting task. The intuit link will tell you the 'other' expenses you can deduct besides the ebay costs.

[luckythewinner]

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I just want the easiest way to do it and I’m done with eBay.

The easiest way is not reporting your expenses and paying the taxes, but you said you do not want to do that. 

Is there a way to file this income without having to go through every single transaction? 

Yes, but that would mean not reporting your expenses and paying the taxes, but you said you do not want to do that. 

 Also, can I file this as a hobby?

Yes, but you cannot deduct expenses for hobby income. So that would mean not reporting your expenses and paying the taxes, but you said you do not want to do that. 

[mam98031]

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@charizardtax wrote:

Edit: it would cost $3000 to just pay the tax on the income. Nevermind I cannot go that route. 

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That is highly likely NOT to be true.  You do get to subtract your business expenses.  Cost of items, shipping, Ebay fees, refunds, shipping supplies, etc.

[mam98031]

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@charizardtax wrote:

Going through over 500 transactions is not a “little effort” lol. You have 13 sales lmao. Thanks for nothing! 

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There are reports you can run.  I'm not sure I understand exactly what you mean by going over 500 transactions.

One would hope that throughout the year you were keeping receipts of your purchases, shipping supplies and anything else you purchased outside of Ebay so you could run your little Ebay business.

Then the refunds, Ebay fees and shipping costs you can get from the Ebay reports.

https://www.ebay.com/sh/fin/reportslanding

[fashunu4eeuh]

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@charizardtax wrote:

Going through over 500 transactions is not a “little effort” lol. You have 13 sales lmao. Thanks for nothing! 

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@charizardtax 

There are many long-time sellers here who volunteer their time to help others. Some, like myself, use posting IDs to do so. The purpose behind this choice, especially for “regulars”,  is to protect one’s selling account from the few crazies out there. Sad, but true.

So be aware that you may well be overlooking a pertinent answer to one’s queries when laughingly disregarding a posted contribution. @monica-sells effort was not “nothing”.