The so-called news aggregators, websites that repackage articles that appear elsewhere with their own advertisements, do provide a greater variety than many news sites, and I have occasionally found an interesting piece there that I would not have seen elsewhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Recently I came across an article((I first saw it on MSN<\/a>, then traced it to the original article on Moneywise<\/a>.)) about new IRS requirements for the reporting of online transactions. The threshold for the reporting requirement has been reduced so that the IRS will now be told about more transactions. As far as I can tell, this change requires the online sites to report more transactions so makes it more likely that the IRS will know about a taxpayer’s online sales, which the taxpayer already was required to report (and pay taxes on) anyway. The new requirement does not actually increase the scope of taxation, but it will make it more likely that the IRS will be able to identify those who evade taxes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The internet has made it easier to run a business, so much so that some perhaps don’t realize that they are. If you rent a brick-and-mortar storefront, stock merchandise, and sell to customers who come in, it’s pretty hard to argue that you are not running a business. But, if you create a graphic on CafePress and set up to sell t-shirts and coffee mugs and let the website handle orders, payment, and shipping and simply receive your cut periodically, maybe there’s plausible deniability. In the online world “virtual” is still real and, to the point here, taxable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some of the e-commerce websites that make their money by providing the virtual storefronts for these businesses formed the Coalition for 1099-K Fairness<\/a>, which has a slick website advocating against the expansion of the reporting requirement. Their rhetoric is all about the impact upon “casual” sellers, but I’m pretty certain the motivation is on their own bottom lines (not that there’s anything wrong with that) as it will discourage some sellers from participating in the marketplace and will generate compliance costs for preparing, submitting, and distributing the 1099’s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Coalition’s primary argument is bolded on its front page: “Millions of Americans have sold an item online, and many of these sellers use those funds for critical needs such as food, medicine, and bills and are not running a business.” The use of the revenue from online sales is no more relevant than the use of income from a job and they are not suggesting that employers should not have to issue W-2’s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Remember, the new rule does not expand the scope of what is taxable, but the increased reporting requirement will move many of sellers out from under the table. Just as a side job is not tax free, so a side gig with a virtual storefront may still be taxable.((Even in my day job as an attorney I do not give tax advice, but those using e-commerce sites to sell their own used goods for less than they paid for them are not facing the prospect of paying taxes on the transactions, although some explanation may be required.)) <\/p>\n\n\n\n Jay Bohn<\/p>\n\n\n\n May 22, 2023<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The so-called news aggregators, websites that repackage articles that appear elsewhere with their own advertisements, do provide a greater variety than many news sites, and I have occasionally found an interesting piece there that I would not have seen elsewhere. Recently I came across an article((I first saw it on MSN, then traced it to … Continue reading “Why Should the Online Sale of Goods Get a Pass From Taxes?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bohn.org\/wpmocha\/peanutgallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bohn.org\/wpmocha\/peanutgallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bohn.org\/wpmocha\/peanutgallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bohn.org\/wpmocha\/peanutgallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bohn.org\/wpmocha\/peanutgallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1116"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/bohn.org\/wpmocha\/peanutgallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1116\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1128,"href":"https:\/\/bohn.org\/wpmocha\/peanutgallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1116\/revisions\/1128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bohn.org\/wpmocha\/peanutgallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bohn.org\/wpmocha\/peanutgallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bohn.org\/wpmocha\/peanutgallery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}