Has anyone else not received their 1099-K?

[greatmidwestcoin]

When I check for mine it states "You don’t have a Form 1099-K for this tax year." That's impossible. Are they just delayed?  I am showing the same under both my eBay ID's. Thanks!

[wastingtime101]

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@donnasfinds wrote:

In the Help section, eBay shows a "tax tip" comment box that says what you report to the IRS may be different than the gross amounts eBay reports...WHAT!?!? What weird world are they living in? So confused and frustrated with something that should be straightforward.

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That's because you will have an adjusted gross income once you factor in your expenses.

[luckythewinner]

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@meme6253 wrote:

I have not received my either, Is it not the law to receive one no matter the earnings?

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The 1099-K form reports gross payments processed on your behalf, not "earnings".

That aside ..

There is no law that requires a 1099-K regardless of payments processed.

[nobody*s_perfect]

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@donnasfinds wrote:   ... eBay hasn't provided ANY guidance regarding how they calculate the figures they're reporting to the IRS. S...  I thought the purpose of a 1099 is to report INCOME. That's what ALL of my other 1099's report.....

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eBay 's Help page about 1099-K's clearly states that it's the gross, though IMHO their choice of the term "not included' is ambiguous:

https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/fees-credits-invoices/ebay-form-1099k?id=4794

This is not something that eBay has arbitrarily decided; it's based on the federal law.  eBay would have no idea how much sellers paid for various expenses such as COGS or supplies, nor even   postage since many sellers don't purchase it through eBay.

I do agree 100% that eBay's place-holding message should have been something like "1099-K's for 2023 are not available yet" rather than telling sellers that they would not be getting one.

[b86fiero]

I received notice from eBay this morning that my 1099K was finally available for download.

Nothing like waiting until the last minute - LOL.  

[dbfolks166mt]

Why put a message like "you don't have a form 1099K for 2023" and then all of a sudden on the 31st post the 1099K. 

     Have to agree on this one they could have simply stated the 1099 is not available yet then once they were issued remove the message. After 1/31 if you were supposed to get one and none was issued then you can contact eBay or the IRS. 

I've been calculating my gain/loss over the last few days based on earnings (payout), and now I see they're reporting gross figures. This means I have to abandon all the work I've done and recalculate everything based on gross. Of course eBay hasn't provided ANY guidance regarding how they calculate the figures they're reporting to the IRS.

     EBay doesn't set that "guidance" it is covered under the IRS tax laws but eBay does provide that information in the following help file.

https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/fees-credits-invoices/ebay-form-1099k?id=4794 

So I have to go into a very detailed transaction report and try to "reverse engineer" how they did it. I thought eBay was a billion dollar multi-national corporation? They're acting like a start-up with incompetents putting confusing and incorrect information out on their site. 

     The information is not inaccurate but if you believe the figures are incorrect you need to contact eBay to get the 1099 corrected. You don't need to reverse engineer anything but you may need to go into the reports to pull your deductions related to eBay selling expenses. These would include any fees, shipping labels if you purchased them through eBay, refunds. 

I thought the purpose of a 1099 is to report INCOME. That's what ALL of my other 1099's report. In the Help section, eBay shows a "tax tip" comment box that says what you report to the IRS may be different than the gross amounts eBay reports...WHAT!?!? What weird world are they living in? So confused and frustrated with something that should be straightforward.

     The 1099 does not show "income" what is reflects is the gross amount of the financial transactions handled by the third part financial processor. To translate the statement "what you report to the IRS may be different than the gross amounts eBay reports" would only be applicable if you utilize a different account method for your personal records, which you declare on your schedule C, and what eBay reports based on their  accounting methods for the 1099. Variances can occur especially with transactions that happen during the last coupe of weeks of the calendar year. 

     If you have never done a schedule C before the gross amount on the 1099 is what you start with. You then deduct ALL the selling costs: eBay fees, returns, shipping costs, COGS, packing materials, mileage, office space.................. to get to your bottom line net pre-tax income. This is what you pay Federal, SE and State taxes on. The following IRS publication may help you. 

https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i1040sc.pdf 

[12345jamesstamps]

They are in Ohio I believe.

[nobody*s_perfect]

The OP is indeed in Ohio. But I was replying to a poster who is in Illinois.

[dbfolks166mt]

@donnasfinds wrote:

In the Help section, eBay shows a "tax tip" comment box that says what you report to the IRS may be different than the gross amounts eBay reports...WHAT!?!? What weird world are they living in? So confused and frustrated with something that should be straightforward.

That's because you will have an adjusted gross income once you factor in your expenses.

     It could also be because of the accounting method the seller reports on their schedule C. I utilize accrual accounting. Prior to actually getting 1099's there was no issue since the Gross revenue was the amount from my own personal records and I went from there. When I started getting 1099-K's things changed depending on the financial processor and whether they used accrual or cash accounting in calculating the Gross reported on the 1099. 

      Variances would occur, usually in the last couple weeks of the calendar year, when I recognized the revenue in the current calendar year but the financial processors that used cash accounting for the 1099 figure did not recognize or include the revenue in the current calendar year 1099, it showed up in the next calendar year. 

     EBay further complicates this with funding holds that can run up to 30 days, or longer in some cases. 

[mike_jayroe]

I got the same message. Yesterday 1/30 I got the message my 1099 was ready. I made under $5,000.00.

I don't know about other states but I am in Maryland.

[nobody*s_perfect]

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@mike_jayroe wrote: .... I made under $5,000.00.

I don't know about other states but I am in Maryland.

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Here's an eBay memo which lists states that have a lower threshold; IIRC a couple more states have been added to the list since eBay published this in 2021. It shows that the threshold in MD is $600:

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Payments/Form-1099-K-Detailed-Report/m-p/31575590#M106915

[donnasfinds]

Hi wastingtime101, no doubt a DMB fan 😀.  Yes, I found these after I posted my rant this morning. Much appreciated.  I swear I tried to find this type of information a couple of weeks ago, when I started on my taxes...must have missed it.  Still, I wouldn't have started my taxes if I had known eBay had fully planned to distribute the 1099-K on 1/30.  The message that I wasn't getting a 1099-K for 2023 totally threw me off course, so I'm still ticked about that.

Now I'm looking at the Details spreadsheet I downloaded - it doesn't include Ad Fees!  But when I look in the Expenses spreadsheet, Ad Fees is included as a separate line item with the Type indicated as 'Other Fee.' How unbelievably inconvenient!

Well, I have to ditch all the work I put into round one and now I start round two of the tax calculations.  I'm sure I'll find more treasures buried by eBay.

thanks again!

[donnasfinds]

Thanks, I appreciate the time you spent responding!

[donnasfinds]

thanks. I'm now understanding that a 1099-K is an 'information' report as opposed to a literal reporting of income received, like a 1099-INT or 1099-DIV.  People should know that the IRS can still use historical percentage ranges of expenses, refunds, etc. and make comparisons between the 1099-K reported figure and the actual figures reported by the individual to create red flags for potential audit.