So........if you only do 201 transactions but don't hit $20,000, you don't have to worry?
How about if you hit 199 but go over $20,000?
Ebay and PP users must file tax forms beginning in 2011 - discuss
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So........if you only do 201 transactions but don't hit $20,000, you don't have to worry?
How about if you hit 199 but go over $20,000?
316what
The Real Vic Mackey
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So........if you only do 201 transactions but don't hit $20,000, you don't have to worry?
How about if you hit 199 but go over $20,000?
AND means all inclusive...if you don't meet both min requirements, then you're good to go.:chew
Well yeah, of course sales are going to be down during a major recession, no matter how many benefits are given. The point was that sales would be down less than they would be otherwise, and since I personally know multiple people that pushed their home purchasing plans forward this year simply to get in on that (and I've looked at the overall home sales stats for a few years now since I'll eventually be buying), I'm still going with it was an effective program (for the banks).
My main issue with it is that I don't think home sales should've been pushed up since home prices are still way more artificially inflated than they should be based on that ridiculous mark-to-market crap.
Mesa
Super Freak
I think including sales tax on your listing would be the kiss of death, just like when people put a reserve on an auction.
I tend to agree, but if everyone had to pay taxes on items they sold, a larger chunk would probably start using this option, and buyers would start paying it without thinking much about it, just like they do when they buy groceries.
But you are right that in the short term, buyers would just factor that into their cost calculation and sellers who didn't charge it (holding everything else constant) would lose sales. Still, that's a way to pass the costs to the customer, in the same way that any business charges taxes. Personally, I have always thought of EBay/Paypal fees as equivalent to a "tax." Add actual tax on top of that, and it really gets harder to justify selling on eBay.
But you are right that in the short term, buyers would just factor that into their cost calculation and sellers who didn't charge it (holding everything else constant) would lose sales. Still, that's a way to pass the costs to the customer, in the same way that any business charges taxes. Personally, I have always thought of EBay/Paypal fees as equivalent to a "tax." Add actual tax on top of that, and it really gets harder to justify selling on eBay.
daikkenaurora
Super Freak
But why now has this come about?
Especially when there are multiple auctions up that dont have a tax charge.
Well, that's part of what makes the free market economy what it is--those sellers who are willing to make less of a profit will make more sales. Fortunately or unfortunately. And government/EBay/Paypal fees are just part of what you have to pay for the opportunity to sell easily through EBay.
I hate paying taxes as much as the next guy here, but to be serious for one second, how else are we gonna pay our police and military, get interstate roads created and kept up, allow kids an education, pay for a judicial system that will prevent people from bashing each others' heads in with impunity, etc.? You don't get something for nothing, and we've got to pay for the privileges that come with living in this country.
I hate paying taxes as much as the next guy here, but to be serious for one second, how else are we gonna pay our police and military, get interstate roads created and kept up, allow kids an education, pay for a judicial system that will prevent people from bashing each others' heads in with impunity, etc.? You don't get something for nothing, and we've got to pay for the privileges that come with living in this country.
I have NO problems with that, but the trouble is, most of the money the government takes in is wasted, IMO. If they would clean up the waste and overspending for things, they wouldn't have to keep finding ways to get even more taxes.
The military and the public school system waste enormous amounts of money. There are many other things too. Reining that stuff in would help alot.
316what
The Real Vic Mackey
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It is a requirement now depending on your state. If I buy something from an in-state seller, I have to pay sales tax and the same if an in-state buyer wins one of my auctions. There's no way to get around it...except buy out of state.
But why now has this come about?
They have been trying to tax Ebay, etc sales since 2003. But up until now it never made it into the final bills. This time it made it all the way through to signature on the 2008 Housing Bill.
316what
The Real Vic Mackey
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Any specifics on military waste?
I know that in the last 10 years there has been a lot more waste in defense acquisition...especially after several high ranking folks went to prison. (see USAF Tanker Scandal for more info). And boy could I tell you some stories about John McCain and his crusade against wasteful defense spending.
Mesa
Super Freak
So my question is, this sort of info has to be tracked and recorded this year 2010, for when we do our 2010 returns in 2011... OR in 2011, when we do returns in 2012?
Because honestly, I don't care to keep track of all that sort of stuff for what is essentially a hobby. If I look at my current Ebay page, i get:
so I'm wondering how much this will impact me, and if I decide to do nothing, does that mean that I would have to pay taxes of ~40% of whatever incoming payments I got for that year?
Does that mean I get to write off whatever I spend for the same amount of time?
Because honestly, I don't care to keep track of all that sort of stuff for what is essentially a hobby. If I look at my current Ebay page, i get:
so I'm wondering how much this will impact me, and if I decide to do nothing, does that mean that I would have to pay taxes of ~40% of whatever incoming payments I got for that year?
Does that mean I get to write off whatever I spend for the same amount of time?
Most of the money isn't wasted, actually. Most of it goes to what it is supposed to, and that includes public goods (stuff that we all need but probably wouldn't voluntarily pay for if the government didn't make us--like the military--because it requires overcoming the "collective action problem"). However, a lot of it does go to pork and inefficient administrative type costs. But realistically, there is no way around a lot of that. Our democracy has pros and cons, and one of the cons is narrow interests of constituencies. So, Louisiana shrimpers want subsidies, and they make up a major interest bloc in the state, so that's what our legislators are gonna lobby for. Better than having a corporatist system. Another problem is an over-reliance on standard operating procedures and entrenched bureaucratic inertia, but if you lose that stuff, you open up a whole new can of worms dealing with the costs of starting from scratch, investing in extensive research and administrative costs involved with establishing new bureaucratic procedures and structures, etc. In order to ensure that the new system minimizes waste, you have to constantly invest resources dedicated to that end, which would probably outweigh the costs of the actual existing waste in the long run. Plus, though you gain flexibility, you lose pre-existing knowledge when you do that. Things are the way they are for a reason. Frequently, for a good reason.
It is easy to say "let's get rid of waste," but damn near impossible in practice. When you reduce existing "waste," you are creating new costs. Plus, waste is a necessary outcome in complex political systems. Particularly one with the kinds of pluralistic interests that we have in the U.S.
You can avoid all this with an authoritarian dictatorship, of course.
Have you ever looked into wasted defense spending? What is thrown away, what is not being used? How WE pay $30 for a screw? $200 for a toilet seat? What is tossed off Navy ships before going into ports or coming home? How there are warehouses full of all sorts of clothing and other military wares that could be used elsewhere and/or sold but isn't? Oh we need a different color boot so all these millions of boots we already made aren't needed anymore so let's stock pile them in a warehouse to rot. I could go on and on.
As for schools, we have overpaid and unnecessary administrators. Grant money given out for stupid things. Jobs being created that aren't necessary. I won't even go into all expense paid trips that are useless.
But.......hey, let's let them do whatever they want because someone thinks it will cost more.
It doesn't cost more to say NO......NO you can't have money for stupid ____ like THIS!
Not nearly enough money going into public schools. The best, most qualified people do something else because they don't get paid ____ in the schools. The benefits are nice, but a qualified executive can make 2-3 times as much as a principle or school superintendent in the private sector easy. Yeah, there is cronyism and nepotism, but you get that in every walk of life. You can't take anecdotes and apply that to the whole system. You can't get a return without an initial investment. Without a well educated, highly motivated student body, we won't be able to compete in the international economy in the future. Without high quality teachers and administrators, we won't have that.
Like I said before, you are going to see waste in government because, in part, it is so heavily reliant on standard operating procedures that hinder flexible behavior with the trade-off that you have well-established protocols that have worked. But you can only do so much here. You want to talk about the military. Could the military be more efficient? Sure, but part of the reason for the inefficiency is that there are national security issues that require a heavy investment in companies that a private business would never concern itself with. We have to be self-sufficient, so we have to have U.S. based producers of military equipment. We may have to establish exclusive contracts with these companies, particularly when sensitive materials or intelligence is involved (frequently). They can't sell or produce to others in some instances, so in order to make it worth their economic while, the cost per unit of widget X is higher than if they were a company competing in the international economic arena.
Like I said before, you are going to see waste in government because, in part, it is so heavily reliant on standard operating procedures that hinder flexible behavior with the trade-off that you have well-established protocols that have worked. But you can only do so much here. You want to talk about the military. Could the military be more efficient? Sure, but part of the reason for the inefficiency is that there are national security issues that require a heavy investment in companies that a private business would never concern itself with. We have to be self-sufficient, so we have to have U.S. based producers of military equipment. We may have to establish exclusive contracts with these companies, particularly when sensitive materials or intelligence is involved (frequently). They can't sell or produce to others in some instances, so in order to make it worth their economic while, the cost per unit of widget X is higher than if they were a company competing in the international economic arena.
devilof76
Super Freak
The government should need money for exactly three things: military, government administration, and police/courts. I don't see how they should be responsible for roads, given that they do an absolutely rotten job of maintaining them (state levels in particular).
I also don't see how they should be responsible for education. The majority of private institutions spend less per child than any given public school does, and the performance of public schools is far worse. What's more, the concept of government designed and mandated curriculums has no place in any country that considers itself a free country. Jefferson was an advocate of public education because he was certain that an uneducated electorate would not be able to maintain the institutions of the republic. He was on the right track, the only problem is that public education hasn't given much of one at all.
The point that tends to get missed is that people have no obligation to be paying for the education of other peoples' children. Or anything else for that matter. Subsidies? Who am I? A slave to every beggar in the country? This is the inherent problem with compulsory taxation. People vote representatives in, the representatives believe they have a mandate to provide for their constituents, and there is no way to stop it once it gets all of the signatures it needs.
Bottom line is that government has no right to be playing Providence. They do not run the country. Every program invented that does not involve law creation, law enforcerment, and law deliberated is a violation of American's Consitutional rights and the only way to stop it is to prohibit them from being able to finance their own wealth destruction/confiscation/redistribution schemes.
I also don't see how they should be responsible for education. The majority of private institutions spend less per child than any given public school does, and the performance of public schools is far worse. What's more, the concept of government designed and mandated curriculums has no place in any country that considers itself a free country. Jefferson was an advocate of public education because he was certain that an uneducated electorate would not be able to maintain the institutions of the republic. He was on the right track, the only problem is that public education hasn't given much of one at all.
The point that tends to get missed is that people have no obligation to be paying for the education of other peoples' children. Or anything else for that matter. Subsidies? Who am I? A slave to every beggar in the country? This is the inherent problem with compulsory taxation. People vote representatives in, the representatives believe they have a mandate to provide for their constituents, and there is no way to stop it once it gets all of the signatures it needs.
Bottom line is that government has no right to be playing Providence. They do not run the country. Every program invented that does not involve law creation, law enforcerment, and law deliberated is a violation of American's Consitutional rights and the only way to stop it is to prohibit them from being able to finance their own wealth destruction/confiscation/redistribution schemes.
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Do you care about commerce or the economic success of the U.S.? If so, then you should be an advocate for government support of public schools. Without an economic base that can succeed in competition with India and China (states that understand the importance of public school, and are investing in educating children in science and engineering), there is no success for America. The small handful of kids who go to private schools aren't gonna do it on their own.
You can hold an over-simplified, ideological pipedream of a perspective if you want to, but that's just what it is. There are public goods that are necessary to economic success, that would not exist without a government existing to overcome the collective action problem. This is economics 101 stuff.
Without roads, there is no commerce, BTW.
You can hold an over-simplified, ideological pipedream of a perspective if you want to, but that's just what it is. There are public goods that are necessary to economic success, that would not exist without a government existing to overcome the collective action problem. This is economics 101 stuff.
Without roads, there is no commerce, BTW.
devilof76
Super Freak
You seriously think there would be no roads, schools, or educated individuals without the government providing them?
And, do you seriously think that my position is the over-simplfied one when the position you're defending amounts to a reiteration of a long standing, unchallenged status quo that is failing at an accelerated rate?
And, do you seriously think that my position is the over-simplfied one when the position you're defending amounts to a reiteration of a long standing, unchallenged status quo that is failing at an accelerated rate?
316what
The Real Vic Mackey
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Kicks in when 2011 returns are filed. And from the numbers you showed, it doesn't look like you'll meet the $20K minimum anyway.
Here are some of the deductions you'll be able to take IF you have $20K+ and 200+ transactions in 2011:
Paypal fees, Ebay fees, mailing supplies (not postage however), and several others.
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