Cost basis - Warning tax related topic

[BobC]

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.".

[raulus]

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

[BobC]

Originally Posted by raulus

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

LOL

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

[raulus]

Originally Posted by BobC

LOL

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

I am a CPA, so I get around.

[BobC]

Originally Posted by raulus

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.

[raulus]

Originally Posted by BobC

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?”

[BobC]

Originally Posted by raulus

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