@worldofdiecastllc wrote:
We are having trouble selling up my girlfriends fathers eBay account as an estate account to sell estate items. eBay is rejecting the EIN because the estate is not a recognized business. Would we be able to use her personal SSN to move the items without incurring taxes on her personal taxes?
Help would be appreciated! Thank you!
If you mean that your girlfriend's father is deceased, and you are trying to settle his estate, first please accept my condolences.
I have never heard of an "estate account" and I'm not sure that eBay allows that. Buying and selling on eBay requires that the account owner be able to enter into a contract, and I'm not sure that is possible for a deceased person. If a death certificate is submitted, that is part of the process for closing a person's account after they die ... I'm not sure if there is anyway to keep an account open at that point.
"Would we be able to use her personal SSN to move the items without incurring taxes on her personal taxes?"
No, there is no way to do that. If you sell the items through a personal account, then the person whose SSN is on the account will be liable for the reporting the income. However, if your girlfriend is the heir, then for inherited items, the cost basis would be the fair market value of the items when they were inherited (when the estate was settled), so the actual tax liability would probably be zero, unless settling the estate and liquidating the items takes a long time and they appreciate in value between when they were inherited and when they were sold. The most straightforward way to do this would be to distribute the items to the heirs, and let them deal with liquidating them, as their own property.
If the items in the estate need to be sold and converted to cash, to settle debts or monetary bequests, then I think you need to get an executor or lawyer involved who understands the legal liabilities and responsibilities and knows how to do this correctly and legally. I would think that a new account would need to be set up, possibly run by the executor on behalf of the estate. But this is a very unusual situation that I have never run across before, so I don't know how this would or should be done.
All of that is assuming that there was a will involved, and your girlfriend is the heir who inherited the items in question, and/or is the executor named in the will. The executor should talk to the lawyer who wrote up the will. If there was no will involved, then the estate will have to go through the probate court, and you should not do anything until you get instructions from the court on what needs to be done and how to handle it.
