ebay question

From: Fred Cisin <cisin_at_xenosoft.com>
Date: Wed Nov 5 15:54:15 2003

On Wed, 5 Nov 2003, Jay West wrote:
> I have a couple questions about ebay/paypal, and figured some folks on the
> list here might know the "straight scoop".

instead, we will give you a lot of uninformed opinions

> 1) If some seller sets up an auction as private (yet it still shows up on
> the listings) - the deal is that no one can see who bid on it, or who is
> currently the high bidder. In this set up, how can I be sure the seller
> isn't bidding on his own auction to drive up the price? He's taunting me I
> bet demmit! heh
I'm pretty sure that the eBay system would not accept a bid by the seller.
Therefore, he is using a SHILL - having a friend of his make the bid.

> 2) Hypothetically, say I sell an item on Ebay for... oh... $2500.00. The guy
> could pay me via paypal, or he could send me a cashiers check. Does Paypal
> report transactions to the IRS?
Only large ones, or "suspicious" ones. The rule of thumb in the banking
community USED TO be that any transaction over $10,000 had to be reported
to the guvmint, as well as any "suspicious" transaction (such as a geek
handling a bunch of cash)

> Or more importantly, if I sell items on ebay
> all year... do I have to track all that and report to IRS? Never really
> thought of it cause it probably isn't much money anyways. But I am curious
> if ebay and/or paypal reports to the IRS.

You don't HAVE TO track it and report it, but if they find out about it,
and you DIDN'T report it, then they put you in with Al Capone.


... and NO, Zane, whether you made a PROFIT is irrelevant. They want ALL
income accounted for; if you didn't make a profit, then it is up to you to
ALSO account for the expenses that caused that income to not be a profit.

The good news is that very small amounts of income ("incidental") can
often be skipped. I have no idea what the current threshold is.


Yes, I will be including my income from VCF on my schedule C.
(although, if that were my ONLY "self-employment" income, then it could
probably be ignored.)
Received on Wed Nov 05 2003 - 15:54:15 GMT