eBay tax reporting changes

I have been using FB marketplace and Craigslist for several years in an effort to downsize after 50 years of marriage we have way too many things. I received a pop up on FB about 2 weeks ago with limited details about the collection of SSN's.

I followed the referenced link Why do I need to provide my tax identification information when I sell with shipping on Facebook Marketplace? | Facebook Help Center and read it several times. If you do so, go to the next to last paragraph and see if you agree that the SSN stipulation is for anyone using FB's checkout payment system and their shipping option? This is how I read it.

I always have in my ads that buyers must pick up the item(s) at our home and only offer shipping by simply stating I would be willing to ship via USPS for a set amount and total to be paid by Money Order or Paypal.

IRT Ebay's new rules dictated by IRS, since all I sell are personally accumulated items from the past 50 years, I have NO intention of trying to figure out what I paid for something 20 years ago and how much of a loss or profit I may have made from it in the interim period, so I will be limiting any of our ebay activity to less than $600 as the bookkeeping nightmare is just so not worth the effort. This will mean more craigslist, FB and ultimately donations to the local charity store.

 

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I would STRONGLY suggest not having strangers coming to your home for the sales. At the very least meet them at a police station or the parking lot of a public place instead of giving out your address

 

While I agree with the caution for a high dollar item such as a coin, all my items are personal stuff like tools, children toys, household items that always have a low $$ value (usually under $5 or $10). I do not give out my address until we have a set time they are going to pick an item up and then I also tell them to either call me at my cell number (which I do not give out until we have a set time) or ring the doorbell and I will bring the item(s) out to them. Many people are equally cautious as buyers and call me from their vehicle and I bring the item(s) to them. We do have our share of crime in our area but for the small $$ value items I offer, I am fairly confident doing things this way, but again, I appreciate your words of caution!

 

Even with those theres still a significant safety risk of just having random people to the house. They may see something they like in it or decide its a nice house in a nice neighborhood owned by an elderly couple to come back later to rob etc. Criminals do use these types of purchases to locate new targets and case the place. Not everyone is bad, but it happens enough its not worth the risk. Even just taking a few minutes to go to the local shopping center parking lot dramatically lowers the risk

 

Telling Facebook that they can't have your SSN is like telling your doctor "okay, but I'm keeping my socks on" right before you bend over the table.

 

The tax man cometh.

 

With how much people freely share with them without thinking twice they probably already have most of the SSNs and just have to pretend like they dont know them

 

I just noticed that Ebay posted a banner on my selling page stating that they will hold my payouts until I supply my SSN - nice!! Thats not going to happen so my selling days with them are done.

Everyone beware - - if you are issued a 1099K and don’t report it, about a year after you file you will receive a Notice of Tax Adjustment taxing the entire amount of sales on the 1099 without consideration of cost of goods sold, selling expenses, etc. - and then the nightmare begins!!

If you get a 1099K, report it AND deduct expenses.

 

I learned that one time when I won $5,200 at a casino and they 1099d me.
I didn't claim it on my taxes and then got an $800 bill from the IRS. Fortunately I still had most of the winning socked away so it wasn't a great hardship.
As for eBay I am done with them. I have used them for years to sell coins in my collection and use the money for upgrading. No longer.

 

Since they are treating you as a company use it to your advantage, trips to the P.O. is deductible mileage, same with trips for packing materials etc. which i currently think is like 57 cents a mile, deduct the Computers used, printers, inks, postage paid, listing fees and everything else related to those sales! use it against them, i bet most part time sellers and probably a lot of fulltime sellers can legally right off much more than they even brought in, keep your receipts and an accurate ledger, keeping a daily log in order is much easier for you come tax time!

 

There's no chance its gone in 5 years or less. A 1099 forum has no impact on sellers, you were already supposed to be reporting it on your taxes forum or not. Yes some cheats will get scared off but the vast majority of sellers and all of the big sellers were already reporting it on taxes

 

Okay have fun with that. Multibillion dollar businesses with almost no overhead dont dissappear because of a 1099 being issued which were already being issued for bigger sellers anyways

Ebay isnt a coin show where basically everyones cheating on their taxes

 

Home office expenses add up, light, water, and cable bills.........

 

Would one of those reasons be their record sales last year? You dont have to like something to realize its a viable business that is going no where

13,300 employees is almost no overhead for a company selling billions worth of product where the sellers are responsible for footing the bill for inventory. Their overhead costs are incredibly small making the sellers foot all the costs and risks. I'd never trust you to run a business of mine if you cant see their overhead is significantly lower than stores that have to carry their own product

 

You just going to ignore all the other numbers in there? I dunno the almost extra 2 billion in sales to get over 10 billion or the 800 million increase in gross income or the significant increase in the stock price. They're going no where

They alienated the small time coin sellers. The simple fact is that coins are essentially insignificant to them. Like it or not it is still the best venue for selling things like clothes and video games or lightly used things which was what built them up. Given all the issues they have with coin sales and how many scams get run there by buyers and sellers I cant say I blame them for wanting to push that more to an Amazon big seller only category