Reporting sales of large $$ items

[BobC]

Originally Posted by Fred

I'm sorry, if someone told me I'd have to pay taxes on the potential future value of a collectible, I'd tell them to go piss off or that I purchased it expecting it to drop in value and therefore will take the tax loss for it.

Next thing you know someone will come up with an ownership tax, to be paid yearly, for having the privilege of owning some cool cardboard. Guess what - I'll tell them to piss off on that one also.

Actually Fred, such a thing has/does exist. Some states, or other taxinging authorities, may impose what is commonly known as a business personal property tax. In Ohio, where I'm from, they actually had such a tax in effect through around 2005. Luckily it was only on businesses though, but if you were a dealer, you had to add up the value of your card inventory on the last day of every taxable year, and pay a tax on the tangible inventory value. I'm not sure off the top of my head what other states may still have something similar in place.

That may be/have been one of the reasons, depending on where you lived, that you would always see businesses advertising year-end clearance sales. They wanted to clear as much inventory out as they could to pay less property tax.