What percent of your life savings is in Baseball Cards?

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Posted By: Robert Dixon

Roughly 8% for me. I don't like this question. 8% is too much. But how am I supposed to finish my sets? Oh well, let's go check out the BST.

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Posted By: JohnnyH

Thanks for the kind words and info Eric B. I never really gave the tax aspect much thought.

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Posted By: Bob

Stunned at som nay "0" answers. I guess I am in the boat with Leon and Adam...

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Posted By: Jim VB

Johnny H,



Consult a tax advisor, but my understanding is that, as Eric said, YOU bear the burden of reporting all sales, whether the auction house reports it or not. To the best of my knowledge, no auction house currently reports this information. If they did, they would have to get a SSN (or business equivalent) from all consignors. They would also send you a 1099 at the end of the year.



Ebay/Paypal recently agreed to begin reporting info from high volume sellers. I believe the agreement begins with the sales made during the year 2010, but don't quote me on that. It will impact only those with high dollar and/or high unit volume. I'll try to find a link to the story for you.



Currently, for most of us, this would be reported as a capital gain and be subject to prevailing rates. These will vary based upon whether you have owned the card more than a year (long term gain-roughly 15%) or less than a year (short term gain-same percentage as your normal income.)



Most importantly, don't accept any of the advice you get from me, or anyone else on a message board, without researching it yourself. I am 100% sure the IRS will not accept "I read it on Net54!" as a valid defense.



Best of luck.


Here's one article. There are many more online.

http://blog.auctionbytes.com/cgi-bin/blog/blog.pl?/comments/2008/8/1218129000.html

The key feature is that Paypal is required to report all info for sellers who receive over $20,000 and 200+ transactions in a single year.

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Posted By: Fred C

Jim,

The days of non-reporting may come to an end if the IRS can figure a way to track all of this stuff, or if the IRS finally gets a clue and demands that the auction businesses and ebay have all consignors provide information for income purposes. If that happens I wonder how many deals will be made outside the auction houses and ebay.

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Posted By: JohnnyH

Thanks for the info Jim. And Fred I wouldn't be surprised to see it start happening real soon, I have read that they are trying to get taxes for state and federal from all sales on ebay and I think that will bring back shows and private sales back to the forefront. Bigtime sellers just better hope they don't try to go back a year or two if passed and try to collect, what a mess that would be for those not claiming anything but selling bigtime.

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Posted By: steve

I am with Leon on this one.

It all comes down to one basic principle: Up goodly%(cards) or down 60%(stocks)?

Would one day love to own a Picaso, er, but thats not an investment is it ?

steve

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Posted By: Jim VB

Fred,

My understanding was that the original version of this law would have set the bar for reporting at total sales over $600. Ebay/Paypal successfully lobbied to get it raised to the $20,000 AND 200 transaction limit. Personally, I'm shocked that they haven't forced the big auction houses to comply, in all industries. The number of units just isn't that great.

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Posted By: Jeff Lichtman

I believe the capital gains tax on a collectible is a flat 28% federally, short term or long term.

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Posted By: Jim VB

Really? See. I said don't trust me.


Just looked it up. So here's a 3rd opinion.

http://taxes.about.com/od/capitalgains/a/CapitalGainsTax_3.htm

They say 28% Long Term and normal income tax rate for short term.


Get a tax guy!





Edited to say- What has Net 54 done that these things no longer post as links?

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Posted By: Eric Brehm

28% is the rate applicable to long term gains on collectibles, although you may have to pay less than that in some cases depending on how your other types of income bracket out (i.e., 28% is the 'max' rate). For most people, it will be 28%.

Another question often asked is whether baseball cards and other sports memorabilia are in fact considered collectibles by the IRS, and subject to the special rules on taxation, and the answer is yes, at least according to everyone I have talked to, including agents of the IRS itself. Here's what the tax code says (from section 408(m), a kitchen-sink piece of tax law; the whole thing can be seen in the article Jim posted):

(2) Collectible defined
For purposes of this subsection, the term collectible means
(A) any work of art,
(B) any rug or antique,
(C) any metal or gem,
(D) any stamp or coin,
(E) any alcoholic beverage, or
(F) any other tangible personal property specified by the Secretary for purposes of this subsection.

It's Section (2)(F) where baseball cards sneak in. Apparently the Secretary has specified it.

I believe that alcoholic beverages are not taxed as long as you drink them real fast.

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Posted By: Don

Zero percent. It's a hobby.

Also, why does Bruce always refer to himself in the first person plural?

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Posted By: Jim VB

"Also, why does Bruce always refer to himself in the first person plural?"


Do they? We hadn't noticed.

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Posted By: Don

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Posted By: Jim VB

No. The ears are different.

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Posted By: Jamie

Yeah, the tax implications are something I have thought about. By the time you're done consigning to an auction house, which takes a 20-25% cut, and then paying 28% taxes on the capital gains, cards are definitely less profitable than they appear.

Though if you have a card you know has dropped in value, you can wait to sell it until you sell a profitable one. I have some shiny cards I bought ten years ago and is worth about 10cents on the dollar now, but I won't sell them until I sell the profitable vintage cards to help offset the gains.

Getting audited doesn't sound like a lot of fun, and even if it is very unlikely in my income bracket of (ahem) unemployed, I got enough problems that I do not want to mess with the Federal Gov't.

If I had Leon's depth of knowledge about cards, I think his decision could be justified. Truth is that there will probably always be a market for rare vintage cards, and especially high-grade ones.

I have no idea what is going to happen to our economy, but if things do get really bad, the really wealthy people will still be able to buy baseball cards. Therefore, I believe it's vital to acquire cards that not only you personally admire, but that the really wealthy people want. Those things will hold their value, since there is a huge disparity of wealth in this country.

One thing that really scares me is stocks. I don't care if the capital gains rate is less, stocks just drive me berserk. I don't have the risk tolerance to buy a stock for $100 and watch it drop to $70 in one day due to a "negative earnings surprise". If it happens, I will panic and sell, no doubt, within two minutes thanks to online trading. Then the next day is goes back up to eighty bucks.

That's why it seems to be that the best investments are the ones you can stick in your safe deposit box, especially for the risk-averse. Baseball cards, gold and silver coins, I-series treasury bonds that remove the risk of inflation - anything that you can physically stick in there. That makes selling it such a hassle that it takes a while to do it and you can't panic sell. Well, hell, it's the only thing that works for me!!!

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Posted By: Bill

At the moment I lost a lot in the Market, it would have been 10-20%. Now not counting the Home,Antiques ect. 40% maybe more, my coin collection is up there also. Then in these these times ....who knows.
I spend more $$ on my Koi Pond now then I do on Cards or Coins. It's my peaceful get away from from Life. I've been redoing the Pond since Fall. My Wife asked me if I'm building a Swimming Pool...I said "YES I will be swimming with the Fishes" LOL....and I will after a few Drinks. The Pond is 15'x 12'x 5' deep....good filtration keeps the water pristine, with no chlorine.

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Posted By: JimCrandell

About 25-30 percent. Real estate 25-30% and stocks, bonds, cds and money market funds about 55%. Big change from a year ago with cards going up meaningfully, real estate down a little(in percentage terms) and financial instruments down substantially.