eBay

tazzylou · ‎05-27-2021

Congresswoman Carol Miller is trying to overturn the new American Rescue Plan change on reporting income of $20,000 down to $600 on Ebay sales. Read the enclosed news report and contact your state representatives in the Senate and the House and tell them that you support Carol Miller's repeal. This change in the bill is only hurting low to middle income people because you know the people with money aren't selling on Ebay. Also, this went through back in March. I just found out about it by watching a youtube video. There is also not much talk from people on this. It doesn't seem like Ebay notified the sellers of this change coming. Is Ebay trying to fight this? Are they notifying the sellers to contact their state representative telling them to vote against this?

https://www.atr.org/lawmakers-should-support-rep-carol-miller-s-saving-gig-economy-taxpayers-act

tools* · ‎05-27-2021

@dbfolks166mt wrote:
Actually they worry little about the financial burden on corporations because they are smart enough to realize the corporations are just going to pass that cost along to the average consumer. What do you think a Big-Mac is going to cost if they raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour.

If a McDonald's worker can finally get close to earning a living wage, a Big Mac will cost whatever it should cost. The obese will still be able to get their 1400 calorie burger, perhaps for a dollar more.

yuzuha · ‎05-27-2021

@dbfolks166mt wrote:
Actually they worry little about the financial burden on corporations because they are smart enough to realize the corporations are just going to pass that cost along to the average consumer. What do you think a Big-Mac is going to cost if they raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour.

Minimum wage where I live is $15 an hour (and it's actually going up in July, too). Big Macs don't cost any more here than they do anywhere else.

tazzylou · ‎05-28-2021

To everyone who is responding that I am trying to avoid paying income tax. I am not a business. I am just a person that is selling used items that me and my family have accumulated over the last 40-50 years just like a lot of Ebay sellers are doing. Selling my items on Ebay is not fun, its alot of work. If the government changes the law from $20,000 down to $600, mostly everyone that sells on Ebay will get a 1099K and have to justify to the IRS why this is not income.

therogue-trader · ‎05-28-2021

It's income no matter what. The 1099-k reports the gross. It's up to the seller to tally up costs and such so that they only get taxed on the net.

forward-motion · ‎05-28-2021

All the socialists who want everything for free do not realize that someone actually is paying for the free stuff. It's kind of like free shipping.

gracieallen01 · ‎05-28-2021

Not just those you mentioned, though. They come from all aspects of life. They are people, and survival is hard-wired - it merely displays differently, depending upon the individual.

Not saying 'NO' doesn't mean 'YES'.

The foolishness of one's actions or words is determined by the number of witnesses.

Perhaps if Brains were described as an APP, many people would use them more often.

Respect, like money, is only of 'worth' when it is earned - with all due respect, it can not be ordained, legislated or coerced. Anonymous

varebelrose · ‎05-28-2021

"Gas is back to where it was before the pandemic"

No idea about gas prices where you live, but in my state gas has gone up almost 50 cents since January, and is a solid dollar higher than in April 2020.

fern*wood · ‎05-28-2021

@varebelrose wrote:
"Gas is back to where it was before the pandemic"

No idea about gas prices where you live, but in my state gas has gone up almost 50 cents since January, and is a solid dollar higher than in April 2020.

Yes, since people are getting vaccinated now and driving back to work instead of staying home. Demand is up now.

home2thesea · ‎05-28-2021

OP, I know it's a pain in the butt to have to do the accounting, not the least of which is paying self-employment taxes, but think about this...every bit you can add to your social security account will help you get a higher SS check when you reach retirement age. Last year, I didn't even make enough on eBay to get a 1099, but I still filed my taxes on what I made. I use software to track my income and expenses every week and file at the end of the year. If you keep on it, it's really not that difficult when it comes time to do your income taxes. Took me about half an hour because everything was already tallied and entered in the appropriate self-employment forms.

sabdi-7453 · ‎05-28-2021

@tazzylou wrote:
To everyone who is responding that I am trying to avoid paying income tax. I am not a business. I am just a person that is selling used items that me and my family have accumulated over the last 40-50 years just like a lot of Ebay sellers are doing. Selling my items on Ebay is not fun, its alot of work. If the government changes the law from $20,000 down to $600, mostly everyone that sells on Ebay will get a 1099K and have to justify to the IRS why this is not income.

So you ARE trying to avoid it, while claiming you're not.

eleanor*rigby · ‎05-28-2021

@dbfolks166mt wrote:
I am not sure this burden will fall on eBay, more than likely it will fall on Adyen as the financial processor.

It may be Adyen. I haven't reached the level requiring a 1099-K until recently.

But that was not the point of my post. The point was and is that the OP seemed to be under the impression that receiving a 1099-K was the trigger for sellers having to report income on their individual income tax. S/he seemed to think if you didn't receive a 1099-K if you sold under $20,000, you didn't have to report the income, and that the new legislation meant now that sellers will receive a 1099-K for sales over $600, the income tax reporting will kick in at that level, creating a burden for those who previously sold between $600 and $20,000 and thought they didn't have to report it.

I was simply trying to clarify for the OP that the legislation did not change the level at which income must be reported by eBay sellers, but, rather, at what level companies (regardless of whether that is eBay or Adyen or PayPal or any other TPSO) must issue a 1099-K.

farmalljr · ‎05-28-2021

A few points here...

1 - The IRS doesn't manually look over your taxes to see if you should be audited. Everything is tied to SSN's and EIN's. If PayPal/Ayden send you a 1099, it is processed though the IRS system, tying your EIN/SSN to their EIN. If it's not reported on the line it's required to, then that triggers the system to look over your filings. This is automated. So they don't need to hire thousands of agents to look over individual returns, they are hiring more agents, because they know they will be auditing MANY more people than in the past. Those agents will be the ones getting the notice from the IRS system to audit taxpayers who are cheating/not reporting income. Just like how eBay bots and the system pull listings and decide cases without human interaction, so does the IRS system. They only need people to bring taxpayers in to an audit to work them over the coals. Hiring thousands of agents is foretelling of what they expect to do, when everything is implemented. They are going to be auditing a LOT of people.

2 If you haven't been reporting the INCOME like you were supposed to, I have no empathy for you. Regardless IF you receive a 1099 or NOT, you are REQUIRED to report ALL income. That doesn't mean you WILL pay taxes on it, but report it you are required. If you are cleaning out the closet and sell "more" than $600, that doesn't mean you HAVE to show it all as "income" without a original receipt. This is just bad advice/information from people who "assume" a lot. Ask your CPA/tax person. THEY can advise you of what you need to do.

3 Almost everyone, except the most wealthy people got "covid relief" money. Be it in a check AND/OR in subsidized unemployment. This was a LOAN from the government to the people. So since everyone enjoyed the free flow of "extra" money from "heaven", now it's time to pay the piper, with much interest. Anyone trying to hide from paying what they owe, IMO, is nothing but a useless thief. The vast majority of people do NOT pay federal taxes to begin with. Why should everyone else have to pay for their burden too?

It would make sense to me, if you want the "benefit" of tax benefits, like covid cash, then you also should be responsible enough to support the system that affords it. Crying because you have to pay taxes, while enjoying/demanding "benefits", seems childish to me.

eleanor*rigby · ‎05-28-2021

@varebelrose wrote:
No idea about gas prices where you live, but in my state gas has gone up almost 50 cents since January, and is a solid dollar higher than in April 2020.

The price of gasoline where I live was around $2.70 to $2.85 pre-pandemic. That's where it is again today. It dipped down around maybe $2.00 to $2.25 during the worst of the pandemic--although, because of my restricted activity during the pandemic, I only filled my gas tank once during the pandemic, and I'm still using the last quarter of that tank.

April 2020 was the second month of the pandemic when many locations were under lockdown or strongly encouraged to stay at home. It doesn't surprise me that gasoline prices were down dramatically in April of 2020. It's disingenuous at best to compare the gas prices of April 2020 to the gas prices of today, unless, as mentioned by a previous poster, it's in the context of low demand in April of 2020.

So, rather than the price of gasoline increasing, which it has--if you're comparing it to the lows we saw during the height of the pandemic--it's more a case of returning to pre-pandemic prices.

Here's a good article from April 2020 regarding the dramatic drop in gasoline prices because of the pandemic--in every state:

See how far gas prices have plummeted in every state across the US since the start of the coronaviru...

farmalljr · ‎05-28-2021

@tazzylou wrote:
To everyone who is responding that I am trying to avoid paying income tax. I am not a business. I am just a person that is selling used items that me and my family have accumulated over the last 40-50 years just like a lot of Ebay sellers are doing. Selling my items on Ebay is not fun, its alot of work. If the government changes the law from $20,000 down to $600, mostly everyone that sells on Ebay will get a 1099K and have to justify to the IRS why this is not income.

Income is income. Wages, tips, etc. This is etc. I own a business (service business). It's income, no matter how I acquire it. YOUR income, is INCOME, no matter how you acquire it. That doesn't MEAN it WILL be taxable. For years, people bought on the internet to avoid STATE sales tax. You were REQUIRED way back then, in most all states, to REPORT all out of state purchases to pay the due state sales tax. Loophole, is now closed. Doesn't change the fact people were committing tax evasion (which IS a crime). States wised up to collect all the money they were being defrauded out of.

dbfolks166mt · ‎05-28-2021

Agree that the first step is computer generated and identifies those taxpayers that received a 1099 but did not include it in their filing. Anything beyond that takes human intervention and action. Like all government agencies the employee ceiling for any agency is set by the figures in the personal services portion of their annual appropriations. While this does not apply to contractors it takes non-personal services to pay for those contractors. While the Biden 2022 budget proposal does have a proposal to increase the number of IRS agents, in fact almost doubling the size of the agency, that budget has to pass congress and congress has not passed all sections of a federal budget on time since 1996. The 2021 budget did not pass until 27 December. Operating on continuing resolutions effectively holds agencies to the funding and personnel levels that were approved the year before.

While the Biden proposal has claims of how much additional tax revenue will be collected as a result of hiring the new agents, estimates are upwards of $700 billion over 10 years but that is a number they just pulled out of thin air. However the $80 billion they want to had to the IRS to virtually double it's size is very definable in the IRS's congressional budget justification submission. Even if it passes doubling the size of an agency does not happen overnight and it will take years to reach the projected numbers and spend the funds in an efficient manner which most government agencies are unable to do with the start of a new effort. There simply is not time when you only have a year, for the most part, to expense the funding.

The IRS like most government agencies has suffered through some significant attrition over the last 5 years and is facing a continual workforce departure curve. So not only do they have to backfill retiring slots they also have to hire new employees in an environment where they are competing against major corporations that can, and do, pay their accountants and tax experts far more than the IRS can afford to do.

Ironically the intent is to target small business owners and the lower income level tax payers because it is easier to do so and because any effort to go after big business would be pretty much a waste of resources. They have more accountants, tax experts and lawyers than the IRS can attract.

Some of us have already been dealing with the 1099 issuance this year because of changes to the state laws so this is nothing new from a reporting perspective. For a lot of people that do or will claim the 1099 as income for tax purposes by the time you get to the bottom line deducting the COGS, eBay and other fees, shipping, packing materials, POV............ many people will show a loss and have no tax liability anyway.