Selling in volume regarding taxes.

[birdman42]

Originally Posted by Leon

Bill- great stuff and thanks for posting. So I have a question as a layperson. As I said before, I have a CPA and another (EA) accountant who do my taxes and books so I won't personally make mistakes (and they are pretty good and don't make many). But if I buy a near set of 520 T206s, and ascribe my cost basis of $50 for each one, and add or subtract the sale price of each one, why wouldn't that work?

Leon:
Eric got this one exactly. Companies do this kind of cost-shifting all the time, even though it's somewhat shady. An example of how this would work to someone's advantage (if they get away with it):

Last month (October) you bought a 520 near-set for $26,000. You've had a great year in the business, and you realize you're looking at a monster tax bill for the year plus now you have cash flow problems from all the money tied up in the set. So you value each card at $50 then sell off 300 commons this year for $20 each. You've just created a tax loss (a reduction in your overall profit) of $9,000 for yourself. You then sell the rest of the set in 2014. Whatever profit you make shows up as 2014 income, when overall business might not be so good or you anticipate an unusual expense. {Disclaimer: This is not to be considered advice on how to beat the system.}

If you're set up as a sole proprietorship, partnership, S corp, or LLC, all the income flows directly to you personally and gets taxed at your marginal rate. In the 28% bracket that's a difference this year of $2,520 in taxes. If you're consistently in the same marginal tax bracket from year to year, it won't make much difference in the end. But if your income fluctuates significantly, or you're right at the edge of a bracket, then when you take income can matter a lot.

As I said in an earlier post, if you're consistent with your method of valuation you can probably justify it. But if you skip around from year to year, or from purchase to purchase, you're asking for scrutiny. Even if you don't get dinged for more taxes, you've gone through an investigation that's taken time and money you'd rather use for other things.

Originally Posted by N.ate

I think you hinted at this in this answer, but I wanted to ask specifically if it was okay to: assign value to a card within a lot for the calendar year it was purchased, and if not sold that year, I carry it over to the next year as a value/cost/expense of "0$", and kept the expenses in the year they were purchased during. The way I see it is that it evens out in the end, because, in that year I sell it in, I am recording it as pure profit. I've done that 2010-2012, and it was not an LLC at that time. It became an LLC in October of this year though, so I may need to do something different. Is the way I've done it from 2010-2012 moronic?

Nate:
Again, once you're talking about inventory then it's a business. You can't treat product inventory as an expense; that's for things like supplies and raw materials. If you buy a closeout deal of 10,000 CardSavers, you can expense the whole amount that year even though you take 3-4 years to use them up. But if you buy a group of cards, you can't expense the whole purchase in the first year; you have to take it as Cost of Goods in the year in which you sell an item.

Nate, I'll PM you with more info. General discussions about tax matters are fine on the board, I think, but talking about specific circumstances calls for privacy.

Originally Posted by Jantz

It may be possible to write of your internet bill as an expense too.

Jantz:
Once you get into taking things like part of your Internet and phone bills, travel, etc, you're looking more and more like a business rather than a hobby. A big tax advantage of a business is that you can deduct all your expenses, without regard for the 2% floor. A big tax disadvantage is that any income is now considered earned income the same as wages, and that means paying FICA and Medicare taxes in addition to income tax. For 2013 that's 15.3% on marginal income up to $113,700 and 2.9% on income above that--but you get to claim half that amount as an expense. (I didn't write the tax code, I just explain it.)

Originally Posted by Val

Hi Bill,
Thanks for the comprehensive info you presented in Post #8. Do I correctly understand that this info applies only to sports collectibles "dealers" (selling at shows, on-line, and/or via brick-&-mortar shops)? If you are "dealing" with a profit intent, then it's Form 1040-Line 12, supported by Schedule C. If you are "dealing" without expecting to make a profit, the IRS considers you a hobbyist, and your net sales (gross sales less cost of sports collectibles sold) go on Form 1040-Line 21, and your operating expenses are deductible on Schedule A (if you itemize, and subject to the limitation you described).

But, I believe most of us Net 54 members are merely "collectors" whose do sell some of our sports collectibles from time to time as we upgrade items in our collections, change our collecting focuses, etc. Is my understanding correct that when "collectors" do this, we come under the IRS's rules for gains on the sales of "collectibles" which I believe are taxed at 28%? Since sports collectibles are considered capital assets, this involves reporting capital gains on Form 1040-Line 13, supported by Schedule D, supported by Form 8949 (for most folks, I think), along with using the 28% Rate Gain Worksheet and the Schedule D Tax Worksheet in the Form 1040 Instructions book - right?

Val:
You are correct about the occasional sale of a collectible item. In general a sale is treated the same as any other investment item, and so should be reported on Schedule D. You can't take a net loss for the year on collectibles held for personal use. But my understanding is that you can use losses to offset gains for the same year. So if you sell a card for a $1000 gain in June and another for a $600 loss in September, you report a gain of $400.

It becomes a question of pattern, scale, and intent. I've been part of an auction lot purchase, in which each of us put in money to equal the total cost. No profit there, so no hobby income. But if you buy a lot on your own, with the intent of breaking up (and keeping some for yourself, or not) then that's at least hobby income. In the OP's example, he's looking for good deals to resell, so the intent is clearly to make a little money out of it. For the weekend dealer who sets up once a month at a mall show, that's probably a hobby and goes on 1040 and Sched A. Set up a couple times a month including larger regional shows, offer your cards for sale on the Internet, and travel to set up at a couple large shows a year, and it's probably a business. There are no bright lines between.

All for now,

Bill