The hobby’s most iconic card under $15k?

[raulus]

Originally Posted by Belfast1933

Update on my plan… and a question for this smart group!

My adult son is my trusted advisor and partner in fun on this journey and he LOVES the 51 Bowman Mantle (logic, I already have the iconic Cobb Portait Cobb and the full body ‘33 Goudey Ruth. Solid logic!)

Here is my question - totally boring but important. Since I’ll probably need to liquidate ~$15k or so of my current collection to build funds to buy the Mantle, for tax and capital gains issues, is it worth trying to find a Mantle seller who might consider at least a partial trade?

That could lower my capital gains risk on the sale of my current cards, right?

(Sorry, told you it was boring&#129315

Jeff

Yep, pretty boring. So I guess I'll bore you to tears.

I'm not sure what you mean by "capital gains risk". But if you're trying to imply that a trade means you don't have to pay tax on your capital gains when you trade your cards in for other cards, then sadly you're wrong, at least under current law.

Having said that, prior to 2018, you would have been right! But under the last round of tax reform, like kind exchanges (i.e. trades) are now only nontaxable events for real estate assets. Every other asset is no longer eligible for like kind exchanges. For the perennially jaded, be my guest in assuming that our former president wanted to protect tax benefits for his preferred asset class, while eliminating that benefit for every other asset class to find some revenue to offset tax cuts in other areas.

All of which is a long way of saying that even if you trade one baseball card for another, you have to recognize a gain on the card you gave up if it has increased in value between when you acquired it and when you traded it. Along these lines, if you bought a card in 2013 for $5, and then today you trade it for a card that today is worth $100, then it sounds like you have a capital gain for $95.

I will concede that if by "capital gains risk", you mean to suggest that since there's no cash involved in your trade, the likelihood of anyone noticing or catching you is lower, then I suppose there's some chance that you might be right. But as a tax professional, I would never encourage anyone to flout the law simply based on the premise that the likelihood of discovery is low.

Or as Mark Twain once said: "We ought never do wrong when anyone is looking". Or when we've mused about it on a public chat board.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gb6vvAG3xfo