Yup, you don’t want to find yourself in an audit and then have to explain “funds” that you never reported on… and now you’ll owe interest on a great payment plan with the IRS tax man… And if you don’t want to file what’s not reported, don’t publicly talk about it. They’ll find out and you can’t claim “ignorance” and only make it worse for yourself.
The only rule one should talk about taxes publicly is, “I report all my income”… and leave it at that!
This was clearly for the little old ladies in the group who sell their old sofas.
I report all my income
My father in law passed away in December. We started a new eBay account for my mother in law to sell some of his stuff. Cell phones. Cameras. Stuff like that. Not extreme value but things that have some worth. She is 80 and everything is essentially being sold as a loss. Online yard sale essentially. She has surpassed $600. And with no original receipts it is all taxable.
And this is a real world example why that $600 was B.S.
If I may be serious on this finally, $20K is a bit much. It can and will invite those that choose not report.
But the alternative of $600 for reasons like this, is just batshit nuts too.
A compromise somewhere in between would have made a whole lot more sense.
I agree with @Bill . She should not have to pay. Even without receipts you should still be able to claim these are at a loss on IRS tax forms.
Problem is it likely throws up a red flag and even though she is in the right, they’ll give her the rectal exam of n audit anyway.
And that would be wrong.
I actually agree too but the problem is, what turned into the miscellaneous selling of items you are likely selling at a loss (like garage sales, yes the IRS doesn’t care about your 1 or 2 garage sales each year, they know most of the time you are selling off stuff at a loss from it’s original price tag), has turned into a full fledged business for a lot of folks who now sell on sites like eBay, etc. So it’s impossible to tell who’s selling to run a business and who’s just dumping old crap. This is why I think it should be a case by case basis and likely based on how often you sell on eBay or other sites. If you got hundreds of items listed on average each month, month to month, you’re a business. If you sell a hundred or so items once during the year and then you don’t touch eBay thereafter, you should be given a pass on the sales, even without receipts.
Just my two cents…
The little old ladies & grumpy old men are back in business! LOL
(I pay all my taxes. I pay all my taxes. I am not a grumpy old man)
I’ll wait for the eBay announcement before I claim victory for Grammy and Gramps. eBay was all over this (for obvious reasons) so I’d expect them to have an announcement to let people know to not let their forced 1099-k get in the way of people listing items. Since it happened over the holoday weekend probably won’t be until later next week.
I think I’ll also move this discussion to the 1099-k thread as well to keep the history together. So don’t be alarmed when it all disappears here.
