Quote:
Originally Posted by Exhibitman
Then don't be a business on eBay. eBay is no longer meant for scofflaws who want to hide taxable income or for dealers who want to pretend that they are hobbyists or investors rather than dealers.
Personally, I love selling on eBay because they determine, collect and remit the damned sales taxes for me. No muss, no fuss. Makes reporting my sales taxes each quarter a snap.
As for taxation, without getting into the specifics, filing as a business gives you a lot of flexibility in terms of timing, realizing and offsetting losses and claiming expenses.
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What about the person that uses Ebay maybe a couple times a year to sell off a collectible they've upgraded, to generate some money for another purchase, or to cash in because they feel the market is right? Are they all dealers just because they used Ebay? See, this is one of the issues with dropping the 1099 reporting sales threshold from $20,000 down to $600. Someone who truly is just a casual seller and not really a dealer may now get targeted as being in an ongoing business because of the low sales reporting threshold amount.
Is someone who has a garage sale every year in a legal business? I don't believe so. So what is the difference if they use Ebay as their garage sale format instead, especially over these past couple of years due to the Covid issues? Using Ebay in and off itself does not a business make, which it sounds like you are kind of alluding to.