Cost basis - Warning tax related topic
 

This has probably been discussed here previously, but I did search and couldn't find. I'm wondering how people determine the cost basis of a card (or any item) bought in a lot. If I buy a collection of 10,000 cards for $1000 dollars, then sell one card for $500 and keep the rest, is the cost basis of that card 10 cents?

Similarly, what is an acceptable way to determine cost basis for cards which you have no buying records of (most of my collection)? Surely, many here have crossed this bridge.

PS...Sorry for bringing the dreaded tax topic up, but there's a lot of people out there who will be trying to figure this out for the first time this year. If not interested, please scroll on.

The simple answer is to allocate the cost based on relative values of the items acquired.

Naturally, there’s potentially a lot of room for interpretation there.

Some people like to look at various price databases, potentially including SMR, cardtarget, or others that are out there to attempt to assign those relative values. My experience is that almost every item has a potential range of values, and you could spent an entire career trying to get the math right. My approach is to spend a little time on it, get it close enough that it seems reasonable, and then move on.

Based on your example, it’s not uncommon for one (or two or three) item(s) to be a lot more valuable than the rest. Certainly it’s possible that $500 of your initial cost should be allocated to the item you sold, so you have no gain on that sale. Naturally, if you go selling 3 or 4 of them for $500 apiece, then you’re going to have a gain in there somewhere!

I believe the least objectionable method from the IRS point of view would be to assess the relative value to each card in the lot. So, for instance, if you paid $10,000 for a box that had 999 1987 Topps commons and a PSA 2 1933 Goudey Babe Ruth, the cost basis for the Babe Ruth would be $9999 and the remaining 999 commons would have a combined cost basis of $1. If you try to claim the Babe Ruth cost basis is $10 in that scenario, prepare for some nice penalties and interest at the conclusion of your audit.

Generally, it is your job to prove to the IRS auditor (or ultimately the tax court) that you reasonably allocated the cost basis of multiple cards in a lot. If your method sounds the least bit sketchy or skewed in your favor, it is unlikely to fly with the IRS. In fact, my limited experience in audits is that even if you do act reasonably and fairly in preparing your taxes, you have the additional hurdle of having to educate a skeptical auditor about a hobby or business that does not understand it as well as you do (which actually hurts, not helps you in most cases).

Scott, I would think the IRS would be delighted if the person sold the Ruth and declared a cost basis of $10 on his tax return, thereby paying a significant amount of tax on his profit.

Makes sense guys...Thank you for the advice. It does raise the next question. How can you prove what else came in the lot?

And can you use reasonable value (average of recent sales) as a cost basis cards you don't have receipts for? Do you have translate those values to market value in the year you bought the card?

PS...What a nightmare for the casual seller.

In terms of proving what came in the lot, you probably have a receipt from the auction or purchase. If you were extra paranoid about the details not being spelled out, you could always sit down and document it when you acquired the lot.

In theory, you should be using relative current market values to allocate the purchase price between the items acquired.

Is it a nightmare for a casual seller? I'm guessing that a casual seller doesn't sell a lot, or at least not in high dollar amounts. And if I had to guess, they probably don't worry about attempting to report it on their taxes. Not that I would ever encourage such scofflaw behavior!

You are correct. I had it backwards. I shouldn't write responses 3 minutes after waking up. Better example. You sell the 999 1987 commons as a lot for $2 and claim a cost basis of $9990, then bundle that tax loss with other card sales with net gains to reduce income while holding the Ruth in your PC with the remaining cost basis of $10 (until you die and your heirs get the stepped-up basis). This may not end well if you are flagged for the audit.

I am going to stop typing before I give other stupid examples before the caffeine kicks in.

When I was selling a lot on ebay, most of my stuff was inexpensive. And even my better items had cost me very little.

What we did was report it as a hobby business, and simply made our cost 0 paying tax on the full gross.
That was actually close enough to reality that the time spent on documenting the cost and profit for everything would have "cost" more than we paid.
And hobby businesses as far as I know can't claim losses.

Did I overpay on taxes? Yes, I sure did. Did I save hours of paperwork? Yes.

For items purchased at an auction house or ebay, yes there are receipts. But shows? Responding to ads in the paper? No receipts.

I don't follow the "relative current market values" comment. If I bought a Pete Rose card at a show 15 years ago and don't remember what I paid...what is the cost basis? Not talking about a lot here...individual cards.

I think there are plenty of casual sellers that sell over $600 in a year. That's not difficult to do, especially these days.

I have a problem with that just on principle. My paycheck is being squeezed enough.

Allow me to update my comment about "current market value". I was referring to current market value at the date of acquisition, not as of today's date. If I purchased 100 cards in a large lot 15 years ago, then I would use the relative market values at the date of acquisition to allocate the cost between those 100 cards.

If you can't remember what you paid for a card from 15 years ago, then it sounds like your basis is probably zero. I would be tempted to dig deep into my memory to come up with a ballpark, although doing so could be dangerous.

In terms of getting over $600 per year in sales, you're right that the new rules require reporting once you hit that level. However, I wouldn't be surprised if those rules get modified. The reporting burden seems like it could be significant, and I expect that there will be an outcry to raise that limit.

I have a set of baseball cards from 1962 ( 62 Topps) which was given to me as a birthday present in 1962. If I sell now , is my basis $ 0 ??? I never paid anything for them and they probably cost less than $20 back then.

Gifts use carryover basis.

So whoever gave them to you probably had purchased them once upon a time. Their basis then transfers to you when they give you the gift.

Therefore, you're probably right that the basis is probably very low, because it's hard to imagine that the person who gave them to you spent very much on the items to begin with.

I can almost hear BobC approaching like a big T Rex crashing through the jungle :)

His fingers just got out of the gym, so they should be ready to begin a significant post.:eek::D

I know. Has anyone seen BobC lately?
I use my landed-cost basis for my cost and my net proceeds for my sale. It's not always a positive :(
And if I don't know the cost then 0 cost basis...doesn't happen often.
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You know your cost basis and can prove it? Don't see how that's possible unless you've only bought from auction houses.

Really? I can't keep track of my buys...where, when and how much? There is this thing called Ebay.... and an excel spreadsheet. Google them. How hard is it to write down all of my BST purchases?

I have tracked, very diligently, my buys and sales over the years. I know my landed cost basis, where and when, on every card in my collection.
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Writing down is proof? You were doing this in the 80s and 90s after every trip to the card show? Hats off to you if you were.

Coming out of the gate swinging. If you do it consistently, the IRS will accept it. I have a gmail account, and still have 20 years of emails; so that means every board purchase, ebay purchase, COMC purchase, PayPal transaction, etc all have a paper trail.

Ludicrous. You can easily find specific transactions?

You've never been to a card show?

I rarely buy anything at card shows. But you're boring me, so I'm going to stop responding and put you on my block/ignore list.

+1. Seems we have an antagonist amongst us.
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What the? Wow...That's over sensitivity at it's worst.

How is it antagonistic to ask if hand written notes and an inbox with two decades worth of emails are acceptable forms of record keeping to the IRS? This is uncharted waters for many people and instead of helping, you guys respond like you're guarding a state secret.

Very odd.

Contemporary documentation is usually fine, even if it’s self-produced, as long as it’s not ludicrous. It’s nice to have a receipt if you can get one, or some other verifiable documentation.

Here’s the thing - unless your basis is really high, it’s just not going to matter enough for the IRS to fight you on it. You say your basis is $20? There’s no juice to the squeeze for them to argue that it’s less. Even if they are right, they’re not going to pick up much more than $5 off you. Not unless you’re selling 50,000 items at $20 basis.

And if your cost basis is really high, then you hopefully have been keeping some documentation in hand.

There’s one more wrinkle here- what happens when you die? Your assets enter your estate, and your heirs step up the basis to market value at your death. This way, even if they don’t know what your basis was, they get a new basis when they inherit from you.

No state secrets here. But as with many things in tax law, it’s often not as black and white as we might hope.

What value do you place on your time?

For example, I bought a railroad china plate for 25 cents at a thrift store. It sold for over $600...(yes, really ) The time I would have had to spend to prove and back out that 25 cents from the profit would be way more than the few cents of tax saved.
Nearly everything I sold came from places that didn't provide a detailed reciept, or any reciept at all, like yard sales.

the time I would have spent doing the paperwork backing out what was often a couple dollars, or much less for stuff like postcards bought in a lot where each was maybe 5-10 cents was far better spent looking for more stuff, or just having fun.

Because who doesn't love to nerd out on tax stuff...I will observe that modern tax forms force you to round to the nearest dollar. So 25 cents is zero dollars. Even if you wanted to waste your time proving your 25 cent basis, it's as good as zero when it comes to calculating your gain.

👍

Bump for BobC to find.

I have had this discussion with my accountant when I was trying to clarify if my bookkeeping was correct. I purchased a lot of a few thousand cards for $1000. I select many of the good cards out of the lot and sell them via ebay paying seller fees and shipping fees. The proceeds from each of these transactions I use to buy down the purchase price of the lot until I have recouped all $1000 I had spent (I'm literally determining cost basis of whatever I want but in this case it was the total value received). Once the lot was payed for then the remainder of my items I owned at a $0 cost basis and then taxes were paid on the proceeds from those cards as those sales were all profit. He said I can determine my cost basis any way I want as long as it's consistent and that I am keeping documentation.

“Any reasonable allocation method” is the precise terminology used by our friends at the service.

Naturally, reasonableness is in the eye of the beholder. And as an added bonus, it’s very facts dependent.

I’m not saying that your approach is wrong in this case. But there are certainly many cases where the IRS could disagree with your approach, particularly if the items left in your collection are as valuable or more valuable than the ones that you’ve sold.

As I mentioned earlier, if we’re talking about small potatoes, then it’s hard to imagine anyone gets excited, even if you’re using an allocation methodology of questionable reasonableness.

Yep. Obviously situations could easily come up where you're selling something that you picked up at a show in 1991 during the junk wax boom.

Being mocked for suggesting that it may not be easy to know every purchase price in your collection is absurd.

Didn't really need me on this one. Nicolo/raulus and Scott/Smarti5051 did a pretty good job saying mostly what I would. Try to remember what you can and/or have records and receipts for, and for everything else, estimate as best you can. Try to be reasonable and consistent in how you estimate and value things. Also, start writing stuff down if you hadn't before, especially in regard to things you're now estimating and/or allocating.

Maybe the biggest thing to make certain of when filing your federal income tax return is that everything is complete and properly filled out with no obvious omissions or mathematical errors that would otherwise cause your return to be kicked out by the IRS's system, and therefore possibly subject it to additional, actual human scrutiny. If you normally prepare and file your federal tax returns yourself, you may want to at least have someone with tax knowledge and experience look over and proofread the first tax return you start reporting these sales on, just to be safe and make sure you're not blatantly missing or doing something wrong. And unless you're a dealer filing and reporting your card activity as a business, you'll most likely be filing and reporting your card activity as a collector/hobbyist, in which case you don't want to show any losses for items you sold. If you are into cards as a hobby, you have to report and pay tax on any gains you may have had from your sales, but for any sales losses they aren't deductible, and you just end up reporting them as $0 gain/income on your return.

If you want more tax related info, go into the Search link, and then go into Advanced Searches. Once there, enter my username, BobC, and then hit the Search button. It will take you to all the threads I've ever posted in. Look for threads that mention or involve tax issues/questions (including threads about "vaults"), and just click on those thread links and look in them for my posts. I'll forewarn you to block out some time before you go looking, and maybe grab yourself a cup of coffee or a cold one before you sit down to begin. You'll find a lot of tax questions, issues, and topics related to the hobby are gone into in some detail. If you come up with any further tax related issues or questions, just ask. Good luck.

One of these days maybe I should go back through all the tax related threads I've ever posted in and put all the links to those in one new thread. That way, instead of always having to type the same or similar tax related answers and comments out in each new thread someone else starts, I can just post a link to the thread containing links to all my other tax related posts, and just say, "Read this.".

Welcome to the tax nerd party, BobC! Everyone seems to have been anxiously awaiting your arrival, so we’re excited you made it.

Yes...First, thank you to all who responded constructively. This has been very helpful I'm sure to many people.

I want to be sure I understand the section above because I was thinking I could net sales out and as long as the result was not a loss, I was good. But it sounds like you're saying this:

Example using small numbers for simplicity...If I sell 10 items and seven of them sell for $1000 each (plus $7000) and the other 3 I lose $1000 each (-$3000), I pay taxes on $7000 and not the net result $4000. Correct?

All depends on whether you are:

1) a dealer
2) an investor, or
3) a personal collector.

I realize that term #2 carries a lot of baggage around here, so people are loathe to suggest that they are an investor. But you might find that the tax outcomes are a lot better as an investor! Just don’t tell anyone on this board about your tax filing position.

This article might help a bit as well, in terms of understanding some of the differences:

https://frblaw.com/2022/01/04/tax-co...s-card-market/

Thank you. I will definitely read that article. But if I fall into the "personal collector" category is the answer in my example $7000 or $4000?

Based on the new law that is commonly known as TCJA, deductions from hobbies are no longer allowed. So you have all the income, and none of the losses or deductions.

I’m guessing that we’ll have a lot more closet investors around here…at least for tax purposes.

Thank you and that certainly stinks.

I'd guess that as well. Either that or Biden will have successfully turned us all into businessmen.

Wonder what the criteria to meet is for being an investor? Holding for a certain period? I'll check the article.

Thanks again

As outlined in the article, there’s not a distinct dividing line. It’s all facts and circumstances. In some ways, it could be as much of a question as how you view and approach it. Do you self identify as an investor? How often do you buy and sell? Do you make money at least sometimes when you do sell?

I would guess that anyone who sells even every once in a while, and makes a little money doing it on some sales is going to be fine claiming to be an investor.

Of course, all of the people running around here proclaiming that they will never ever sell no matter the price might have a harder time. But if they actually never sell, then they wouldn’t care anyway, because they’ll never have a gain or a loss, so there’s no tax consequences to them, at least under current tax law.

Now if the government gets around to implementing some of the proposals on taxing appreciated property, especially if they lower the thresholds low enough, then that would be a different scenario. But Bernie and his friends are likely to have a hard time getting that through, at least at thresholds that are low enough to effect most collectors.

LOL

You're doing a good job. I take it you've done/do taxes?

I am a CPA, so I get around.

Am as well. Been around the block a few times myself, that is for sure. LOL

Welcome, nice to have another CPA around to try explaining to everyone what they need to be concerned about. For a while I seemed to be the only one responding to a lot of tax questions from a "professional" standpoint.

Well, you know how it goes. “My buddy is saving millions on his taxes by [insert totally sketchy, incredibly aggressive nonsense]. So I want to do that too!”

To which I always respond: “Would you like to be cell mates with your buddy?”

Good lord, LOL!

You should go back and read some of the posts/threads after the 2018 South Dakota vs. Wayfair case, and how people are incensed about the sales taxes many of them now pay. Or one guy I got into a bit of an argument with about how his wife only sells a few things every year via Ebay, and he was telling me how she wouldn't ever have had to collect and remit sales tax, so Ebay shouldn't be charging it. I asked him if his wife ever sold anything to a customer in the same state they lived in, because if she did, then she had sales tax nexus and should have been collecting and remitting sales tax to their home state on those same in-state sales all along before Ebay took over. He thought I was nuts. LOL

Or I've explained to people how when they just trade cards, that is still technically deemed a sales transaction by the IRS, and is supposed to be reported as a taxable sale by both parties to the trade on their tax returns.

This lowered 1099-K reporting threshold that started this year is another issue many people who sell things on Ebay take exception to as not being right, and is supposedly them getting attacked by the IRS. I've tried telling people they were supposed to be reporting these sales activities all along, but many of them think that if they didn't get a 1099-K under the old reporting threshold limits ($20,000 and 200 or more transactions) that meant to them that they didn't have to file and pay any taxes on income they may have made at all.

Same thing with many people and paying use taxes on items they used to buy on Ebay, before Ebay started collecting sales taxes on everything, or won from auction houses that haven't started collecting sales taxes for whatever state they live in yet. A few people get ticked off when you remind them they are supposed to have voluntarily been paying that use tax in for all the years they've been buying stuff with no sales tax being charged to them.

I don't tell people what to do, but I do tell them what the law says they are supposed to do. What they personally choose to do is up to them. But I always figured that at least the more they know, the better off they'll end up being in defending themselves should they ever get into it with the IRS. I've always tried to fully explain to clients what they are supposed to do, so that way if they end up getting caught by the IRS for something they decided not to tell me about, they can't come back at me and say I never told them about it. Some people never learn or listen. LOL

Funny thing happened on the way to a baseball card chat board: an accounting seminar.

Carry on.

Adam, I believe you meant to say, "Income Tax 101 Seminar." :)

Thank Joe Biden. He's turned a hobby into a business for us all.

Take the politics elsewhere; not appropriate here.

That's not politics. It's reality.

The point being that the moderators of the board don't need anymore train wreck threads than it has to have. Assigning blame to politicians or bringing in/up political views is one of the things frowned on here. Looks like you've got minimal posts so you probably don't know that - I guess you do now.

I'd think the hobby being hurt is quite relavent to a hobby forum. The fact that the person who is ruining it is a politician is secondary to the discussion. Are we all supposed to pretend we don't know why it is happening?

There were certainly plenty of "PSA is ruining the hobby" threads here. Those trainwrecks went unchecked as far as I can remember. And where did all that hand wringing get us? Nowhere as far as I can tell. Feels like status quo to me.

This is a topic that is affecting each and every collector in a negative way and rarely is a word mentioned. Why is that?

I think the difference is that politics has become very weaponized. Everybody has a side, and nobody is really budging from their side. So, any discussion of politics devolves into an impossible “tastes great” vs “less filling” screamfest. The TPG debates involve a hobby specific topic that does not generally rest on a poster’s political preference.

So, rather than searching for “fault” regarding taxes, it is far more productive to discuss what the current laws are snd how to navigate them (at least on a vintage card message board).

These could be part of the "unwritten rules" of the forum, unless of course they're written somewhere, and I just haven't read them.

It does seem like discussing policy is fine. But once you start mentioning specific politicians and/or political parties by name, even if only in passing and/or in relatively benign fashion, then you're in the danger zone.

And maybe in some ways, as we see politics permeating every other sphere of life, where just about absolutely everything is political nowadays (sadly, including sports), this policy could be an attempt to avoid allowing politics to similarly taint our discourse on this site.

Discussion of politics is not an unwritten rule.

It is explicitly prohibited: https://www.net54baseball.com/faq.ph...testfaq#faq_12
(Things you may not post, 5th line)

There you go. Politics and religion, among other things.

I’ve probably violated most of the rules without realizing they were even rules.

This thread is about the impact to collectors and not the idiotic decision that caused the impact...just so we're clear. It's a bigger drag on the hobby than anything PSA has ever done, but talked about 1% as much.

Bob,

This has been talked about here on this forum before, and how the change in the lowered reporting threshold for 1099-K sales reporting on platforms such as Ebay using TPSOs (Third-Party Payment Service Organizations) will impact literally millions of people who sell on Ebay and other online platforms, and not just those in our sports card hobby. Most here on the forum tend to try and stick with just the card/memorabilia collecting hobby itself as the main focus when posting. Also, many dislike when a hobby related tax question is posed and I respond with what they call a War and Peace novel, in trying to properly and fully explain what the new or changed tax law means, and what and how they may be affected, and probably most importantly, what they need to know and do about it in regards to their collecting activities.

As a matter of course, I pretty much know which politician/political party is behind all of these new or changed tax laws, and the reasons and/or intent behind them, as I believe most others here on the forum do as well. So what real need is there to talk about who did what? I would be more/most concerned with what to do about it. And thus, I, and most others, try to limit our discussions to the effects and impact of these new and changed tax laws, and let someone else worry about who put them in place. There are other forums and chat rooms that I'm sure are more politically oriented, and would be perfect to visit to go into discussing the people and political reasoning behind such new laws and changes. The main focus on this forum is to discuss topics and issues that share information and hopefully help other collectors to navigate the hobby. I fail to see how talking about which political person/party may or may not have been behind the new or changed tax law that affects sports card/memorabilia collectors is in any way going to be helpful to them in regards to the hobby, whereas, explaining the impact and effect of these new or changed tax laws, and what they need to be aware of and what they may need to do in response to them, would be a bit more useful, wouldn't you agree?

In the future, simply do not mention a specific person, politician or political party. Keep it generic and no one will give you grief. Had you just said the government ruined the hobby by passing the new tax reporting threshold change, no one would have said a word. Meanwhile, pretty much everyone already knows which politicians, and their parties, were behind this changed reporting requirements passage.

And just so you know, this didn't actually change any tax law itself, just at what point these TPSOs had to start reporting sales to the IRS. I'd already stated this in an earlier post to this thread. The tax laws always called for people to be reporting their profits from sales of things like sports cards/collectibles all along on their tax returns. It was just that since no independent third parties were required to report all such sales to the IRS, that many of those people who going forward are now going to start getting these 1099-K forms (pretty much all of them really, in all likelihood) simply didn't report their sales profits on their tax returns, and are therefore literally guilty of tax evasion. But what I really don't understand, and hope you can explain to me then, is how by enforcing the tax laws already in place, and maybe stopping some people from continuing to cheat on their taxes, is that then guilty of ruining or damaging our hobby? Does it cause many people, and not just people in our hobby, to now have to do extra work in regard to their income taxes, yes, and I am the first to admit it will be a PITA for many. Why else do you think even the IRS went ahead just before this past Christmas and deferred this new reporting requirement for another year? Otherwise, everyone would have been in the middle of all this new tax reporting crap right now. And this isn't anything suddenly new. This change was signed into law back in March of 2021 if I remember correctly, and I believe I may have been the one to first mention and post about it on this forum over that same Summer. And now with this additional year of deferral for the new reporting rules taking effect, one would think that everyone potentially effected would have now had more than enough time to get ready for these changes. And also, since this was supposed to have been in effect since the start of 2022, but the deferral not known of till the latter part of December, 2022, wouldn't one think that if this new tax reporting change was going to damage and harm the hobby it would have already started and been very noticeable and done so last year? But unless I'm mistaken, I didn't see the hobby tanking or being hurt much last year at all, did you?

And as to your comments about how people keep going on and on about PSA ruining the hobby, they are referring to the direct effect that may be falling onto collectors from possibly buying incorrectly graded cards, or more specifically, ones that are actually fakes, doctored and/or altered. Collectors typically do not like buying and owning items that are not what they should be, especially when they or others have paid someone like PSA to ensure that their cards and items are real and as advertised. That kind of treatment can have a direct effect on how collectors perceive and trust/rely upon TPGs for cards they buy, and can thus turn people away from the hobby and possibly have them quit collecting entirely in some cases because of that distrust they now have. Now that could most definitely damage and harm the hobby. Meanwhile, the tax reporting requirement changes don't really affect any collectors buying cards at all, only if they resell them. So, if dealers/sellers are really the only ones directly affected by these new sales reporting rules, does that mean that collectors are going to stop wanting to buy cards and memorabilia? Hell no! And even if the dealers/sellers now have to put up with these new tax reporting changes, do you really think they'll stop selling if they still want to make money and get cash out of their inventories somehow? Again, hell no! PSA's issues and supposed faults would most definitely affect the demand side of the equation. The tax reporting issues primarily affects the supply side. And in all my years in dealing with businesses and the economy, I think that in the case of our hobby, the most harm and damage to it would come from disruption to the demand side. As long as there is demand, and someone is willing to pay for something, someone else will almost always find a way to meet that demand, and make a buck or two in the process, taxes or not. The inventory is out there, and if some dealers/sellers don't want to deal with the IRS, you know that that inventory will somehow eventually end up in the hands of others that will be willing to supply it to those that want it. And that is why, IMO, your statements about how both the alleged PSA issues and these new tax reporting changes are both somewhat equally damaging and harmful to the hobby, and thus should be more equally talked about and debated but aren't, don't really seem to be totally true and the same after all, at least not to me.

And most true collectors don't really collect cards to just turn around and resell them, they collect them to keep them. And yes, yes, I know that some collectors will use cards and items they pick up to occasionally sell to help finance additional card purchases. But ask yourself this question, if such collectors now realize that using certain online platforms and payment services will cause their sales to be reported to the IRS (and thus requiring them to be reported on their tax returns like they probably should have been all along anyway), they can simply look for different venues/ways to keep doing their side sales, but utilize ones that will not require such third-party sales reporting to the IRS. Like using Net54's B/S/T forum, trading in Facebook groups, doing private sales, going to shows, etc. That way they can continue potentially cheating on their taxes, but still get the money they want for collecting purposes. I never advise anyone to cheat on their taxes, but know that pretty much everyone does or has at some point in their life probably not properly reported and paid quite everything they should have for their income and sales/use taxes. LOL

I find it particularly interesting, and also quite comical, when I hear or see someone complaining about something like the government always looking to raise or add new taxes, but then when the government finally decides and gets around to doing something about it and instead goes after the tax cheats that aren't already paying the taxes that they should be, and finally enforcing the tax laws like they should have been doing all along so they don't have to raise or create new taxes, those same people start whining even more when it turns out they are some of the ones that have been cheating the rest of us all along by not properly paying the taxes they should have been to begin with. And I am not pointing a finger at you, or anyone else in particular, on this forum. Just saying.

10/10. Would read again.

Taxes
 

BobC....Thank you very much for taking the time to post that most articulate post. I am sure it is a huge help to anyone who reads it ....Thank you!

Bob...Love your opinions and large bombastic posts, even the finger wagging ones. You might find it interesting, of the three other accountants I've spoken with over the past year, you are the only one who speaks of the change in such glowing terms. The consensus among those I spoke with is that it's ridiculous to set such a low limit and will be an inconsistently interpreted, unmanageable drag on everyone involved, not just the American citizens.

However to your question. How does it ruin the hobby? Let me list the ways. (Let's see if I can "out-wall of words" you.)

It's not a hobby any more. We're all bookkeepers at least and business men at worst. Even if you have no intention of selling this year, you have to keep records and receipts (good luck with that) to be prepared to sell someday. And it's not just card/memorabilia purchase receipts. It's all receipts for all things that can help reduce your tax liability down the road. Did you buy penny sleeves? Save the receipt. Did you drive to the post office, record the date and mileage. Did you go to a show? Save the admission ticket. Hey, should I record the mileage for that too? Did you hand a dealer a wad of cash? Take a selfie of the two of you engaged in the exchange (but remember to blur his face). Has anyone other than business men done this over the last 50 years of baseball card collecting?

I can hear the "I've never sold and I never will!" retorts already. I'd be curious to know the percentage of collectors out there who never sell but instead take their collections to their grave. I'd bet it's a very small percentage. (Today we salute you, Mr. Til Death Card Collector Guy...For you it is still a hobby.)

This new rule is as much about proving you didn't make money as it is taxing those who did. I've completely sold down to zero three times in my life. The first time in high school to buy my older girlfriend a worthy birthday present (that was a mistake), once upon college graduation to finance a month long cross country road trip (not even close to a mistake...the Vegas and Tijuana legs of the trip alone were worth it) and once upon divorce (worth it). Did I make money any time. No. Could I prove it? Also no.

I bring this up because life happens. You might not be planning to sell today, but you don't know what tomorrow brings. Maybe someoday, you'll be making this fun decision...Playing it safe and overpaying the federal government, when you likely need the money the most or recreating years if not decades of records and hoping they pass muster if questioned. Sound fun? Hobbies are fun, right?

(Spare the, "you would've faced this under the old rule too" comebacks. Not once in my 3 experiences, did I approach 20K in sales. I'm guessing more collectors fall in in the $600-$20K value range than the 20K+ range.)

And a note on the tax cheats in our "hobby". It's funny Bob that you point the finger at collectors when you mention this (don't shoot the messenger., it was your example) and not the "cash only" and "cash discount" dealers out there. Isn't that really where you should be directing your sarcasm and ire? Why are the collectors the bad guys here?

Can this change be interpreted any other way than an effort to stick it to the little guy? The big fish were already being reported (well their non-cash transactions anyway). The people who can't afford to consistently pay $5 for gas and $6 for eggs, who find a way to help subsidize their cost of living expenses (expenses that were much more manageable just a couple years ago) are really going to swing the pendulum in Ukraine's favor? At a time when all Americans are being squeezed, rolling out a plan to squeeze them harder seems a little tone deaf, if not evil...especially when we see the unpopular ways the government spends our money.

I wonder how many collectors here were ever charged with "tax evasion" for not reporting their under 20K ebay sales? I'll bet none. If nobody is being penalized for it, is it really cheating? Or is it the accepted norm? Or even...gasp. A hobby! It's a much talked about phenomenon, like PSA FBI raids and lawsuits but like those topics, doesn't really amount to anything in the end. It's just an over used, empty excuse to justify the squeezing of American wallets.

A few other bonus features of the rule...You get a more complicated and expensive tax return! It's not just added bookkeeping and records retention...It's literally more money out of your pocket. How fun is that?

Think you can outsmart the system and call yourself a business and deduct expenses on Schedule C? Well, how does self employment tax sound? Sound fun?

Who doesn't love math? Let's say I bought a card five years ago for $500 and today, being a little more well off, buy a much nicer version of that same card for $2000. Not needing two of the same card, I sell the first for $1000. Did I make $500? Feels to me like I'm out $1000. What say you Bob? How would this get reported? Is that income? Who doesn't love having to explain that?

And what about eBay? For me, it was a huge source of my collecting over the past 20 years. However, over the last couple it's become a picked over carcass as seller after seller has gone underground and/or listed less. Has nobody else felt this difference? How is that good for the hobby?

I'm sure there's more, but for now that's enough.

This. The law ain't new; the enforcement effort is.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the underground economy in the United States is estimated to be equal to about 8.8% of GDP. Since GDP is about $20-23 trillion each year, the underground component is nearly two trillion dollars. Just taxing that under long-standing law would cover a gigantic piece of the government's activities. The people 'hurt' by having to pay the taxes they actually owe, boo-friggedy-hoo. Screw them. The tax frauds are just picking the pockets of everyone else.

As for politics, there is a Watercooler section where anyone so inclined can howl at the moon over whatever political nonsense he or she wants without annoying the rest of us who are here to discuss cards. Know it, learn it, live it.

Why do people keep clinging to this irrelevent justification like a life preserver? Is anyone in this thread calling the law new?

The sanctimonious comments I see repeated here regarding tax cheats are too much. Who are the "people" of which you speak? John Q. Collector who churns the bottom of his collection and occasionaly makes a few bucks or the Cash is King dealers that fill every show you go to? This new enforcement only nets the former and does nothing about the latter.

That argument is entirely based on a logical fallacy: "two wrongs make a right." Everyone is supposed to pay the taxes they owe. You cannot justify one tax cheat by pointing out another one you think is worse.

Also, you have your facts wrong. The 1099 threshold lowering law is new; it was passed in 2021 to commence 1/1/22 and was kicked over a year after intense lobbying by the facilitated marketplace vendors like eBay who will have to prepare the 1099s.

More to the point, whether the 1099 law is new or not is irrelevant. As the CPAs here have repeatedly pointed out, the 1099 is merely a mechanism for the IRS to check compliance with existing tax reporting requirements. The underlying obligation to declare taxable income has been around for over a hundred years.

Calling people you disagree with sanctimonious is not an argument, it is an ad hominem attack.

The fact you clearly do not want to acknowledge is that only someone who has not been reporting his card-related income will get stung by the 1099 rules. Anyone who declares his income and pays his taxes already has no need to be concerned with the 1099 threshold changes. I got a 1099 in 2021 under the old threshold rules. Meant nothing to me because I maintain books for my card selling activity and report my income.

This is too rich. Point of fact. You're the one who said the law isn't new. Please scroll up and read your own words. I'm the one questioning why you're even bringing that up. If your own retort confuses you, how do you expect anyone else to follow it? Here...I'll save you the scroll:

Second, to the defenders of the old/new/revised/whatever enforcement...If it doesn't get the primary offenders, what's the GD point? It's a lot of extra effort for all, with little payoff. The proverbial juice isn't worth the squeeze. If you want to make a difference, abolish cash sales at card shows. Then you'll see some added revenue. Suddenly, every mom & pop dealer in the country has the best sales year of their lives.

One word: scoring.

If you want to spend money on something else, but want to offset it with projected revenues, then the approach is to implement a change like this. The math wizards stick the proposed change in their black box and come up with a guesstimate about how much revenue it will raise.

Whether or not it actually will raise any revenue is less important than how it scores.

In general, this isn’t partisan. It’s just how Congress operates when it comes to revenue and spending bills.

You don't have a friggin' clue about any of this, do you? I was originally going to respond to every point in your completely idiotic comeback to my earlier post, but I can clearly see that would be a total waste of time and effort. So I'll just address some of the more ridiculous statements/accusations. And this is not to be political at all, but after your one post where you got called out about politics, and then made some specific remarks in your comeback to me about.......well, here's the quote:

"Can this change be interpreted any other way than an effort to stick it to the little guy? The big fish were already being reported (well their non-cash transactions anyway). The people who can't afford to consistently pay $5 for gas and $6 for eggs, who find a way to help subsidize their cost of living expenses (expenses that were much more manageable just a couple years ago) are really going to swing the pendulum in Ukraine's favor? At a time when all Americans are being squeezed, rolling out a plan to squeeze them harder seems a little tone deaf, if not evil...especially when we see the unpopular ways the government spends our money."

You've pretty much sealed the envelope on which political point of view you're with, but still, what a comical bunch of crap you've just spewed. At least now I know I have to dumb down my response to you even more. Hey, I do have to tip my hat to you though in that you at least learned not to mention a particular person or political party in your posts so as to not violate the "no politics" rule. But what is so surprising is that you'd listen to and learn from myself and others on that point, but then totally disregard and blow us off on everything else we were trying to educate you about. But again, now that I know where you're coming from politically, why should I be at all surprised in your overall responses?

Speaking of which, your response to Adam about him being wrong when he, and others like myself, tried to tell you there is no new tax law, just shows your obstinance and ignorance on this topic. Here's another of your quotes I'm going to use to demonstrate the idiocy in your comments and thinking:

"I wonder how many collectors here were ever charged with "tax evasion" for not reporting their under 20K ebay sales? I'll bet none. If nobody is being penalized for it, is it really cheating?"

LOL You just basically asked the age old question/joke, "If a tree falls in the forest, does it still make a sound?" Of course it does, even if there is no one around to hear it. So, what you're basically asking/saying is that if someone who had card sales of under $20K, which didn't get reported to the IRS on a 1099-K form, and as a result doesn't report their sales on their tax return that year, how can they ever be considered guilty of cheating (ie: breaking the law and being a tax evader), right? Well, I have a perfect analogy to hopefully explain this in much simpler terms, which you obviously need to finally understand this.

If you are driving down the street doing 50 MPH, as you pass a sign indicating the speed limit is only 35 MPH, are you breaking the law, even if there isn't a cop with radar on the side of the road to catch you and give you a ticket? Well of course you are, the answer is YES, you're breaking the law! Or are you one of those people who think the law doesn't apply to them, especially if they aren't actually caught? (Which based on your obvious political leanings may explain some of your nonsense.) And here's where the fun part begins. So, it then turns out that people living on that street are upset with all the speeders and worried about their children's safety or getting hit as they back/pull out of their driveways, and so on, and so they complain to the city. And in response, the city goes ahead and installs one of those cameras to catch the speeders since they don't have enough cops to sit on the side of that particular road all day. And then the next day you go driving down the road doing your usual 50 MPH, and end up getting a ticket, to which you start crying and moaning about. The 35 MPH speed limit law had been, and still was, there and in effect all the time. (And this would be like the "old Law" that Adam was referring to.) You just hadn't been caught breaking the law before. But now you go ahead and start bitching and moaning about how it is going to start taking you all this extra time to get where you're going, how stupid it is to have to drive so slow, how this is going to penalize and primarily go after all the local people who actually live on that street, and on and on. And what may even be funnier is if those in the group now complaining about being caught by the speed camera included some of the same people who complained to the city about all the speeders in the first place. I can hear them now (say this in a high, whiny voice), "Gee, I meant ticketing everyone else that was speeding, but not me!" LOL This new tax reporting rule isn't a new tax law, it is the new speed camera set up and helping to now catch all the speeders that had been breaking the speed limit law that was there and in place all along. Do you finally get it now, or are you going to continue denying it, like someone continually saying the Earth is flat?

And as to you erroneously calling out Adam for supposedly saying something contradicting himself about whether a particular law was new or not, are you really that ignorant to not understand that the law he was referring to as not being new was the one that calls for everyone to report and pay taxes on their sales income? The quote you later referred to him supposedly contradicting himself with referred to the change in a totally different law regarding when certain independent third-parties have to start reporting sales by others to the IRS on 1099-K forms. That is the new law he was referring to, and really has nothing to do with the old, long established law about reporting and paying taxes on sales income. I can just see you having sold enough to have hit that $20K and 200 transactions threshold for getting a 1099-K form sent to you in some prior year, and then the 1099-K form sent to you getting lost in the mail so you never received it. Listening to the way you talk, I can just picture you thinking and saying to yourself that since you didn't get any 1099-K form, I don't have to report my sales that year on my tax return. And then I'd love to be there and see and hear your comments and reactions when you eventually ended up getting and opening that letter later on from the IRS telling you about how much in taxes, interest, and penalties you now owed them because you failed to report your sales income on your tax return. You somehow idiotically appear to think that unless you get a 1099-K form reporting your sales income to the IRS, you aren't required to report and pay tax on that income at all. I'd especially love to be there then when you tried to then complain and argue about it with an IRS agent, and the dressing down you'd get, and fully deserve, if this ever had happened.

"This is too rich. Point of fact. You're the one who said the law isn't new. Please scroll up and read your own words. I'm the one questioning why you're even bringing that up. If your own retort confuses you, how do you expect anyone else to follow it? Here...I'll save you the scroll:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Exhibitman View Post
This. The law ain't new; the enforcement effort is."

And speaking of saying things that contradict oneself, all your lovely comments claiming I kept pointing my finger at and just calling "collectors" tax cheats and tax evaders. For example:

"And a note on the tax cheats in our "hobby". It's funny Bob that you point the finger at collectors when you mention this (don't shoot the messenger., it was your example) and not the "cash only" and "cash discount" dealers out there. Isn't that really where you should be directing your sarcasm and ire? Why are the collectors the bad guys here?"

In another attempt to try and educate you, go back to my earlier post and re-read it, and this time pay very close attention to exactly everything I said in it. Assuming you can adequately read and comprehend things (which I'm having severe doubts about based on all the things I've seen and read from you so far), you should be able to see that not once did I ever say or refer solely to "collectors" as being tax cheats or evaders. In fact, in disputing you in an earlier post I very clearly indicated that, and I quote, "Meanwhile, the tax reporting requirement changes don't really affect any collectors buying cards at all, only if they resell them." Whenever I made reference to anyone being a possible tax cheat or evader, I clearly mentioned them generically as "people" or others, never directly or as just "collectors". And for the record, that reference to "people" also included dealers and those that just did cash transactions as well. Or didn't you understand that? I guess I should have written even more in that earlier post so as to have specifically mentioned dealers that do cash transactions and don't report those cash transactions on their tax returns can, and should, be considered as tax cheats and tax evaders as well. Silly me for not having listed every possible person or entity that could be considered a tax cheat/evader for not listing all their cards sales on their tax returns. Oh but wait, you bitched at me for writing too much as it is. So if I don't write down all these possible tax cheats/evaders, you bitch at me, and if I do go ahead and write down even more stuff to include them, you bitch at me about that. Starting to see and understand about having to dumb things down for you yet? Back on topic, and I quote, "is how by enforcing the tax laws already in place, and maybe stopping some people from continuing to cheat on their taxes, is that then guilty of ruining or damaging our hobby". Or this other example, "The tax laws always called for people to be reporting their profits from sales of things like sports cards/collectibles all along on their tax returns. It was just that since no independent third parties were required to report all such sales to the IRS, that many of those people who going forward are now going to start getting these 1099-K forms (pretty much all of them really, in all likelihood) simply didn't report their sales profits on their tax returns, and are therefore literally guilty of tax evasion."

I never said this change was going to be fun, or nice. I did say it was going to be a PITA. And for your comprehension, that stands for "Pain In The Ass?, which I have no clue how you think that in any way talks about this recent reporting rule change in glowing terms:

"You might find it interesting, of the three other accountants I've spoken with over the past year, you are the only one who speaks of the change in such glowing terms."

And by the way, who gives a rat's ass what some other accountants said. Based on your somewhat obvious political leanings, I'd want to fact check the hell out of that comment to see if they even exist. And even if they do, did it ever occur to you that they might just be saying things they thought would be somewhat sympathetic to your point of view so as to possibly attract you as a new client? Or if they happen to be a friend/acquaintance, they agreed with you so as not to tick you off and ruin that relationship? Yes, I know this new reporting thing is going to suck for a lot of people, but instead of bitching and moaning about it, like it seems you only want to do, I was actually posting all along to try and warn others about it, and what they may want to plan to or have to do about it. Like make sure they do not ignore it if they end up getting a 1099-K in the future. I've also tried to make it a point to explain how the IRS will initially view someone getting one of these 1099-K forms as being in an actual business, unless they make sure to go ahead and properly report the results of their sales activities as only a collector/investor, in which case they wouldn't have to worry about the self-employments taxes. But you don't get or understand that, do you? And these accountants you supposedly talked with, they're probably mostly concerned with how they're going to get all this extra tax work done they they're going to be faced with next tax season. But don't worry, they can then think about all the extra money they can make off of it.

Or is this maybe the biggest thing of all that is causing your complaints about this new reporting rule change having hurt the "hobby", you just can't find the stuff you want on Ebay anymore:

"And what about eBay? For me, it was a huge source of my collecting over the past 20 years. However, over the last couple it's become a picked over carcass as seller after seller has gone underground and/or listed less. Has nobody else felt this difference? How is that good for the hobby?"

By any chance, the fact of many sellers leaving Ebay couldn't have possibly also been from other things like higher Ebay fees, more restrictions on sellers, sellers like PWCC being booted off, the installation of their Authentication Program, the commencement by others of "Vaults" (which has since caused Ebay to start a Vault of their own), or maybe even the start of Ebay now collecting sales tax on all Ebay transactions? But no, none of those could be factors, it us just the new tax reporting requirements rule change according to you it sounds like. Those departing Ebay sellers especially couldn't have also had anything to do with the sales tax law changes, which were allowed to take effect under a prior administration IIRC.

I could go on and on discrediting every dumb thing you've said, but why bother, it seems you never intended to listen to what anyone else had to say and try to educate you about at all. I've already posted over and over about this change in the tax reporting rule here on the forum long before this, trying to warn, help out, and answer questions of those who ask them, even when I've already been asked and responded to literally the same questions multiple times before. But I must say, I've never had someone try to throw politics into the mix, as you appear to be doing. And if so, take that crap elsewhere!!! And you are totally wrong in even daring to say I was being sarcastic before, I was not, and only trying to be totally honest with you, and actually trying to help to educate you. But you couldn't possibly understand that could you, because I didn't immediately agree with exactly what you think and wanted to hear? If you had taken the time to asks nicely, or gone back through old threads I and others having have chimed in on, you'd find that your questions and concerns about other issues surrounding this topic. like not always having complete records and data to report with, has been discussed before, along with possible solutions and further advice on what to possibly do. And I'd already in an earlier post suggested that for someone that doesn't want to pay taxes on the profits they get from their card sales, or to not have to bother reporting any sales on their tax returns at all, there are various other ways and venues they can use and take advantage of to get around that by not having anything reported to the IRS regarding what they are doing. But anyone that elects to do that is technically a tax cheat or tax evader, or whatever you want to call them. And if someone doesn't like being called or thought of like that, tough $hit, don't cheat on your taxes then.

There are two certainties in life...

1) If you start a tax thread on Net54, BobC will contribute a longwinded, condescending reply.

2) BobC will get his feelings hurt when responded to in kind.


Here are the Bob C Cliff's Notes for those who don't have time to read War and Peace.

1. Bob gets feelings hurt.

2. Bob points out that NET54 is no place for political talk then copy/pastes quotes he deemed political and spends three paragraphs talking about them.

3. Bob misses the point entirely, tells me "what I'm saying" then tells a story about a guy getting a ticket.

4. Bob then shows that even he had no idea what Adam was talking about.

5. Bob shoots the messenger, then uses 500 words to explain that he said "collectors are tax cheats" and not "solely collectors are tax cheats".

6. Bob thinks all my friends are accountants and/or unprofessionals who just tell their clients what they want to here. (Oh to be as good as Bob. One can dream.)

7. In discussing eBay, Bob confirms that when he sees hoofprints, he looks for Zebras.

8. Bob closes with an angry summary, in which he proves that while he may have a firm grasp of the tax code, his reading comprehension needs work...while also bringing up the forbidden topic of politics again.

The really really abbreviated version of the last couple pages

Wah! The bad gummint is going to take "our" money!
Yeah, it's called taxes.
Wah, I don't wants to pay them evil gummint men anything!
Yeah, but you really should.
Well then you're a jerk.

It doesn't take a lot of intelligence to collect baseball cards and that fact really shines through in some of the responses. Learn to read Steve.

Thanks Raulus for being one of the few here who take the time to understand and respond to the questions being asked. I'm very impressed that you are able to do this without telling me what I think, what my motives are or what "I'm really saying". Refreshing.

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).

While some speak of this as the end all be all tax evasion solution...It will actually do very little of that.

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.

I did, a long time ago. I even understand what I read...

Had never considered the relationship between intelligence and baseball card collecting. Maybe a good separate topic

This thread, that you started, was asking questions, and to which you got serious and sincere help and answers from myself, and others. And it was pretty much done months ago when it appeared to have ended with post # 48 in September, 2022, joking about the boring CPA/accounting conversation Nic/raulus and I got into. But then, YOU took it upon YOURSELF to come back to it and suddenly re-start this thread and make it into a political issue, for whatever idiotic reasons. And when people called you out on it, your true colors came flowing forth. If you don't like others calling you out and then pointing out exactly what you are, then don't do something stupid like that again. Everything you stated in your list about me is basically nothing more than a juvenile, totally unsupported, attempted slap in the face back at someone who dared to call your bluff, and call you out in front of everyone else and treat you as you had treated them. Truth is, I couldn't care less about you, and who or what you are, and especially anything you may have to say. My big mistake was ever trying to help you and answer your questions in the first place. Gee, what's the old saying, "No good deed goes unpunished."

And my initial post, that you seem to have taken so much offense with, was in response to this post by you, after you had already crossed the "no politics" line, and already been informed of that by others:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Stupe the Second Sacker View Post
This thread is about the impact to collectors and not the idiotic decision that caused the impact...just so we're clear. It's a bigger drag on the hobby than anything PSA has ever done, but talked about 1% as much.

I responded with a long post to explain further and point out how your statements were not entirely accurate, and to also reinforce what others had said about politics, and even went so far as to suggest how you could make responses that would not cross the "no politics" line in the future. I was being completely honest, civil, respectful, and also trying to be helpful and educational. I even emphatically stated that I was not pointing a finger at you, in regard to the comment I had made at the end of that post, about people complaining about new or raised taxes, but how when the government finally does something about it so they maybe don't have to raise or add new taxes, those complaining are sometimes found to be tax cheats who were at least partially causing the problem and need for the new or raised taxes to begin with. That was simply a factual statement for everyone's benefit and/or knowledge (and hopefully a laugh as well). But that was the post to which you then replied with all the sarcastic, juvenile vitriol you could muster. And it was then in my responding back to you about that post, in kind, that you're now complaining even more about me. Ohhh, of course, I get it now. You can say and do what you want, how you want, to others, but God forbid someone comes back and treats you and responds back to you in the exact same way then. Talk about juvenile and bullying responses, and someone thinking they're better than others! But I'm the bad guy because I subsequently responded to you while now acting like you?!?!?! Wow, how typical. YOU started this, I'm just ending it!

However, I should have realized from the start that it was going to be a mistake for me to ever try helping and interacting with someone like yourself. But I do have to recognize and give you some credit for even advertising the warning about yourself for all to see, I was just too ignorant to comprehend and immediately recognize it myself. I mean, come on, your self-chosen username should have told me, and everyone else, all we needed to know.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/stupe

So which definition, #1 or #2, is more apropos? (Want to know what my guess is?) You have a nice day, you obviously deserve (need) it! :):):)

Turds and punchbowls might be a better topic.

Had never considered that either Dave. :)

This thread is the reason I married an accountant instead of becoming one.

I do wonder, though, about card shows. They're largely all cash transactions and no receipts are ever given. In fact, if you want to have fun, ask a stodgy old card dealer for a receipt next time you buy at a card show. Every dealer at every card show is a tax cheat, right? They're not issuing receipts, and most aren't even keeping track of sales.

For the cost of a $40 table you can liquidate your cards with absolutely no paper trail. And in metro Detroit, the number of card shows per month has quadrupled, at least, over the last few years. I know for a fact that more than one dealer at the last show I attended gave up selling on eBay and now just travel from show to show on weekends instead. No records. No paper trail. All cash.

This statement from Bob C. typifies the stupidity and overreach of the tax laws:
"...I've explained to people how when they just trade cards, that is still technically deemed a sales transaction by the IRS, and is supposed to be reported as a taxable sale by both parties to the trade on their tax returns."

No offense to Bob C., he's obviously very good at what he does and quite bright, but if you need a CPA to sell baseball cards, there's something wrong with the system. And people will always find ways around paying higher taxes. It's the American way.

Scotts gets it. Hope others here are paying attention.