Monday, March 28, 2005
"Good Old Uncle Sam"
The IRS is looking to tax money people get selling on E-bay as part of their annual income. Not people (at least not yet) just selling junk they found in the attic, but people who buy stuff at garage sales or flea markets then turn around and sell them. How they would determine that is anyones guess since people could likely just have other people bid for them or what not. It's funny everyone wants to make money. Uncle Sam always has to step in when people find different (legal) ways of doing so. Read here.
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6 comments:
We have in this country something called an income tax. You may have heard of it. When you earn income, you owe a portion of it to the government. If you find a way to make income without the government knowing about it, good for you. But you really have no right to bitch when the government eventually figures out how to tax it.
I bought something at a sports show recently. That wasn't taxed. Whats the difference?
Now you've confused me. Are we talking about income tax or sales tax? If sales tax, I have no idea why it wasn't taxed, but it has nothing whatsoever to do with Uncle Sam. There is no federal sales tax, so all that comes from Trenton (or Harrisburg), not Washington. If we're talking income tax, then how do you know it wasn't taxed? If the person you bought it from is a professional dealer, I figure it almost certainly was (or will be the next time he files).
At shows like that those guys probably factor the tax into their prices and round up to the nearest dollar. They are legally obligated to send the sales tax to the state every month. That is what my mom has to do when she does her craft shows. If you paid cash the vendor may or may not claim it, but he is legally supposed to but who really cares. That is between him and the state. Most people claim a percentage of it to keep the state off their backs.
Drew what about all the money you get when people buy stuff at Amazon?
Good question, Keith. I'm not sure about the details, because I don't think it will ever effect me, but if you earn a certain amount of money, Amazon is required to report it to the IRS, in which case, I'll be on the hook. Extrapolating from current performance, I might have maybe $70 of earnings at the end of the year. As Jenna said, technically, I should report that as income and pay taxes on it, but it's probably small enough that a) the IRS won't notice, and b) it wouldn't actually make any appreciable difference in my tax liability if they did.
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