mam98031 • Volunteer Community Member • Buyer/Seller since 1999
@uncseniorsportsfan wrote:Maybe those folks like my granddaughter should file a Schedule C and take a loss on those "business" transactions since they are selling their items for less than they paid for them originally as well as paying fees to eBay and paypal.
What is the difference between selling used personal items on eBay and selling them at a yard sale??
I realize you are being sarcastic, but I never came close to suggesting such a thing.
Yard sale requirements vary by city and county across the nation. Some have no rules and others do. For the particular rules on that you have to check with your local government.
Selling on the internet is different. You aren't selling local, you are selling worldwide for the most part. You aren't typically selling to your neighbors.
You don't like the idea of having to report your sales to the state and federal government. I get that. There are lots of people that feel the same way you do. Doesn't make it right for those that choose not to report their sales. But I know there are lots that don't.
IRS use to say if you earned $600 or more in a calendar year you needed to report your income. But they no longer do that. They have no minimum threshold stated.
As far as reporting sales to a state. I would imagine that while the reporting should happen, most states will have a minimum threshold before any state business taxes are due. In the state I'm in, they don't begin until you have about $45,000 in sales. But if you are below that threshold it doesn't mean we aren't required to report, it just means that unless we have some sales tax to remit to the state, there won't be any tax due.
As I stated before. Whether you are purchasing stuff to be sold here, cleaning out your closets or selling off collections of whatever it is you have collected over the years. Everything sold on Ebay is a business transaction. Now certainly that doesn't mean that every single person that has sold something on Ebay has to set up as a business with their state and/or claim whatever they made on Ebay to the IRS. Certainly there are exceptions where the values are just too low to even consider this. But because you already owned the item or items you sell here is not the rule of thumb to follow to determine this.
@dasarock wrote:
@mam98031 wrote:
@wpt05 wrote:
@mam98031 wrote:
@wpt05 wrote:
@kathieskorner wrote:Most of those coming here to report good sales - use a posting ID so it's kind of hard to know what is selling well.
It is also hard to know if they are telling the truth since there is no proof of their great sales record.
For what purpose do they need to make it seem as if their sales are something they are not?
I don't know. Maybe they are running for president.
I've seen other threads where people were complaining about no sales, but when I looked at their id, they had many sales...
Point taken. I've seen that too. And when I've posted a question about that they just ignored the question.
understood … but when you used to average 5-7 sales a day and now average 1 sale per day and a half … it's close enough to no sales. I know most items I have listed are between $7-$10, but going from $18k plus just over a year ago to the now $4-$5k in last year … it's a bigggg drop.
the only good thing is that I very rarely get any kind of negative feedback from buyers, and very very few returns... so the sales I do have are good ones!
OK. I have no idea what your sales were last year. I hope things improve for you very soon.
@femmefan1946 wrote:
Yes. The US state taxes show up on our invoices, but we don't touch them in any way. Strictly a pass-through.
More important is to keep records.
An item purchased for personal use, used for personal use, and then re-sold does not have the same value as an item (new or used) purchased for resale.
Usually using the item reduces the value, but I also sell rare postage stamps and even the used ones (sometimes) have increased in value.
I'm glad you understand, I actually thought you did from other posts on this subject. Your post I responded to say that you collect the taxes. I think it was just a matter of you knew what you wanted to say, but it came out slightly different than intended.
