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Originally Posted by G1911
I think you may have replied to the wrong person, as I didn't talk about garage sales at all, or most of what you are talking about. I know how PayPal works...
Garage sales and face to face absolutely are affected though - I don't have proof of what I paid (and thus, to calculate my profit form an eBay sale) from a face to face transaction 20 years ago, or often even memory of what it was myself. As I am taxed on PROFIT, it's going to be a total pain in the ass at best to survive auditing, as I can't prove what I paid at a Card Show 15 years ago to then calculate from an eBay sale next month.
As to your last paragraph, If I have to hire a professional to make sure I don't get !@#$% by the state over a few eBay sales that I wasn't cheating about on my taxes in the first place, well.... That's exactly why this is a problem and ridiculous. It is a shift of the burden of the proof, and creates a ton of headaches. After losing 45%+ of my sale price when I can't show what I originally paid, and then hiring a professional, there's even less reason to sell. Its not much more profitable than burning my duplicates in the fireplace.
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My apologies as I wasn't so much responding just to you, but also trying to explain the what's and why's of a lot of these crazy new laws and changes to everyone that may not know much about all this, or have not heard about it already.
And as to saying everyone has to hire a tax professional to do their taxes now, I'm really not suggesting that is what everyone necessarily do. I'm merely saying that depending on one's knowledge and experience, and their own unique and personal tax situation, and this huge change in tax reporting becoming effective now, this is actually a critical point in many people's hobby/collecting activities to finally think about and decide how they want to be treated going forward. Since a lot of people are finally going to be forced to start reporting parts of their "hobby" activities on their tax returns, doesn't it make sense for them to think about if they want to be considered as a dealer, or maybe as an investor, or just a plain hobby collector, or even possibly a mix of all three? And if they're not sure exactly what that all means, or what they want to do, or how they may want to be considered and treated going forward, doesn't it make sense to at least talk to someone that might be able to help them to understand the differences and the pros and cons of choosing one way of being treated over another? And then maybe help to explain/show to them how their choice(s) actually gets put into their tax return. You need or want to hear that from someone with some actual tax experience, not some of the yahoos who occasionally will post on here that will tell you to just do what they say and you'll be fine, and act like they know all the answers because they heard it from so-and-so's cousin, or saw something online last night. So even if you don't want to have to hire a tax preparer, at least maybe ask around to hopefully find someone you can talk to about how to proceed going forward tax-wise. Maybe think of it like this. Someone starting out in a business usually needs to sit down and decide what kind of business do they want to start. Do they go forward as a sole proprietor, or maybe they file to become an LLC. And then again, maybe they decide it is better to incorporate, but then should they elect to file their taxes as an S-Corp, or maybe leave the taxation as a C-Corp. And then, how does that fit in with their regular job(s), other businesses, and investments, and then all the same questions for their spouse if married, and on and on. Beginning to get my drift?
Anyway, sorry again. My response was not solely directed at just your post.