ebay authenticity guarantee limits now 250/750

[Lorewalker]

Originally Posted by BobC

Depends on whether or not you are treating your sales, and resulting losses, as a Dealer, Collector/Hobbyist, or possibly as an Investor.

If a Dealer in business, you can fully offset all your loss sales against your gain sales, in determining your resulting net income or loss from the business as a whole. Any resulting net loss is then fully deductible against all your other taxable income for that year.

If a Collector/Hobbyist, your loss sales are not supposed to be deductible against your gains from any other sales, or any other taxable income, ever. Specifically read the paragraph titled "Losses realized on disposition of collectible assets", from the attached Tax Advisor article link provided.

https://www.thetaxadviser.com/issues...lectibles.html

If an Investor, you can offset the losses from sales of your collectible investment assets against gains from other sales, and potentially have overall net losses be deductible against other income as well.

The linked tax article goes over many of the things I've been posting about all along. It also reiterates how confusing and complex these issues and questions can be, and how thinking and planning ahead can be very helpful.

Thanks, as always, Bob. Certainly is a gray area on the investor vs collector front, no? While most of us buy cards because we love them. We also know history has proven it is a safe place to park money. When we buy something we might not start thinking about the exit but selling is always a distinct possibility either to fund another card purchase or to pay for a kid's college education, etc etc. I doubt many of us buy thinking we will never sell anything we have acquired but maybe some here have made that commitment. I think it would be nearly impossible for the IRS to classify any of us as absolute collectors.

[BobC]

Originally Posted by Lorewalker

Thanks, as always, Bob. Certainly is a gray area on the investor vs collector front, no? While most of us buy cards because we love them. We also know history has proven it is a safe place to park money. When we buy something we might not start thinking about the exit but selling is always a distinct possibility either to fund another card purchase or to pay for a kid's college education, etc etc. I doubt many of us buy thinking we will never sell anything we have acquired but maybe some here have made that commitment. I think it would be nearly impossible for the IRS to classify any of us as absolute collectors.

Like I've said various times on here, and as that article I posted the link to points out, a very simplistic way to show a Collector versus an Investor is that a Collector/Hobbyist will have their items displayed and hanging on the walls or shelves in their man cave, while an Investor will likely have their items sitting in a bank safe deposit box or maybe one of these "vaults", like at PWCC or Goldin. In that article, they used artwork for the example, but the same result.

Aside from that easy difference, the lines really blur as to what differentiates a Collector from an Investor. It is really more intent than anything else, but how do you physically demonstrate or otherwise prove intent, aside from if you display or store your items? This is where the lines can blur and get real hazy.

One would expect a true Collector to have very few sales, whereas for an Investor, you might see more sales to take advantage of gains when they occur, or sell off items that are suddenly losing value (this is more of a modern card issue). But if you start having too many sales, then you might be looked upon like you're really a Dealer because of all your ongoing sales activity. And I still say, you can actually be all three (Dealer/Collector/Investor) at the same time. It is just that the different parts of your inventory/collection/portfolio all need to be kept separate from one another, and would require proper accounting and tracking of activities, sales and purchases for each of these separate parts.

How many people who are dealers also happen to have a personal collection, a lot of them, right? So what happens if they decide to retire and sell everything off? Does being a Dealer mean that they'll have to pay ordinary income tax on the profits from sales of their personal collection because it all gets treated as part of their Dealer inventory, instead of profits from their collection sales getting treated as capital gains, and possibly subject to a lower overall capital gains tax rate instead? Not if they keep track of things separately and can have records and such to show how they have a separate business inventory from a collection. And think about it. Say they sell their collection, and it brings in $100K of profit, which isn't that far-fetched for someone who's been collecting for 20-30-40 years and accumulated a lot of great items over those years. If they treat that as ordinary income from selling it as part of their business inventory, that will be subject to an individual federal tax rate of up to 37%, plus whatever they'll also owe on that profit for self-employment tax, which can be anywhere from 2.9% up to 15.3%, but for these purposes we'll use the low end of 2.9% and assume the taxpayer has already reached the max FICA limit for the year. So we'll say the federal tax is at 39.9%. (And I'm ignoring any additional Obamacare Surtaxes that may be owed for this example.) Meanwhile, if that $100K get treated as a gain from the sale of Collectibles, held for over a year so the gain is considered long term, the maximum federal tax rate on that $100K is 28%, and there is no self-employment tax on that. (And again ignoring any potential Obamacare Surtaxes.) So that is a potential federal tax rate difference of 28% versus 39.9% on $100K of profit/gain. You do the math and tell me which way you'd rather have treated your personal collection when selling it then for tax purposes.

And instead of selling everything when you retire, what if you have an accident/illness, and are suddenly gone. Now your surviving spouse/children/heirs have to deal with your business inventory and personal collection, and may really know nothing about either. At least if you keep some records and books showing how you have split and kept separate your business inventory from your collection, your heirs can use that to also take advantage of the lower potential federal LT capital gains tax rate on your collection. See, when you pass on, the attributes of what you leave your heirs go with those items. So the business inventory gets passed on as inventory, and when sold will generate ordinary income or loss. The personal collection will pass through as a hobby collectible/investment, and when sold will generate capital gains or losses. So keeping at least some semblance of records and separation of different parts of your collection and/or inventory, can also make life a lot easier for you family/heirs down the road as well after you're gone.

Hope this helps explain things.

[Exhibitman]

Steve, I agree, these tax whine threads are repetitive and boring. There are some people who bitch about any and all taxes and tax processes, and some people who don't. And there are some people who prattle on at absurd lengths about it on a baseball card chat board. Anyone wanna play with cards?

[Snapolit1]

And then there are people who religiously pay every dime in taxes the government is owed but become incensed when a 1099 shows up . . . .



QUOTE=Exhibitman;2228017]Steve, I agree, these tax whine threads are repetitive and boring. There are some people who bitch about any and all taxes and tax processes, and some people who don't. And there are some people who prattle on at absurd lengths about it on a baseball card chat board. Anyone wanna play with cards?

[/QUOTE]

[Leon]

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

Steve, I agree, these tax whine threads are repetitive and boring. There are some people who bitch about any and all taxes and tax processes, and some people who don't. And there are some people who prattle on at absurd lengths about it on a baseball card chat board. Anyone wanna play with cards?

I suggest not reading a thread that anyone doesn't care to. It's pretty easy. I appreciate every one of BobC's comments. Thanks Bob!

To the original topic, the Ebay Authenticity, it needs to be tweaked....

and...an ambrotype. (not Jay M's fingers)

[BobC]

Originally Posted by Leon

I suggest not reading a thread that anyone doesn't care to. It's pretty easy. I appreciate every one of BobC's comments. Thanks Bob!

To the original topic, the Ebay Authenticity, it needs to be tweaked....

and...an ambrotype. (not Jay M's fingers)

Thanks Leon!

Nice ambrotype as well, by the way.

[G1911]

If every thread was an original topic, there would be less than one a week.

[ullmandds]

I recently purchased a raw...w516 2-2 on ebay. I received it today...it was NOT authenticated prior to being sent to me. What's up with that?

I believe the card is good...but...wtf?

[BobC]

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

Steve, I agree, these tax whine threads are repetitive and boring. There are some people who bitch about any and all taxes and tax processes, and some people who don't. And there are some people who prattle on at absurd lengths about it on a baseball card chat board. Anyone wanna play with cards?

Adam,

If you are going to complain, why not go after the real guilty parties in all this, the people who ask the tax questions in the first place!!! If they didn't ask, I and others wouldn't try to help and answer them. Just because you have your own situation all figured out doesn't mean everyone else does. I always thought the purpose of this forum was for people to converse and be able to ask and share information about the hobby and aspects of it that affect them. I know taxes isn't a direct hobby issue, but unfortunately, it is a part of the hobby whether we want it to be or not, so I would think in the end that taxes are a relevant issue that some forum members have questions about and want to discuss. Just because you don't have those same or similar questions and issues doesn't make them any less relevant.

I could very easily just PM those asking the questions, and not post in the threads, but I figured that would be a disservice to other members who may have similar issues or questions themselves. What I would not expect is those who then complain when someone it trying to help other members by "prattling on" and answering their questions and offering direction and advice, that they asked for, or to possibly correct erroneous information that others had posted.

Quite frankly, such complaints exhibit a lack of respect for those that were asking the questions, as though they don't deserve to have a response and get help back in return, and selfishness on the part of the complainers because since they don't seem to care or be as concerned about the tax issues and questions surrounding our hobby for themselves, they seem to believe neither should anyone else.