Cost basis - Warning tax related topic

[raulus]

Originally Posted by Stupe the Second Sacker

Sounds like smoke and mirrors. All the goverment nets is a few casual sellers on ebay and the primary offenders continue business as usual (unreported of course).

I suspect that we probably all interpret it how we want. Obviously since this particular provision impacts our world, and not necessarily in positive ways just in terms of the availability of pieces on channels like eBay, many of our fellow hobbyists view the 1099 reporting provisions in a pejorative fashion.

But there's no question that there are often gaps between the estimates when bills are passed and the actual costs and/or revenues experienced by the treasury. Part of the fun is that the scoring process also only looks at the next 10 years, so it's inherently limited time-wise. Another part of the fun is that it's often limited in terms of employing a dynamic analysis - the notion that taxpayers will change their affairs and activities in response to changes in the law. And obviously some sellers in our world have changed their activities in response to the 1099 reporting requirements.

Speaking of scores sometimes being off by a bit, I read a recent article about a bill from a short time ago where the estimated cost for some provisions as passed by Congress and enacted into law was estimated at $391B at time of enactment. Updated estimates from an investment bank peg the cost at $1.2T, which is a bit of a jump.

Part of the reason for the change in this case specifically turns based on assumptions about which activities would qualify for a tax benefit. When the bill was passed, there was one set of assumptions used around how the rules would work. Subsequently, the rules were adjusted to expand the population of activities/taxpayers who would qualify.