You May Owe Taxes on Your Online Sales
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Here's your money briefing for Thursday, January 25th. I'm J.R. Whalen for The Wall Street Journal. In the eyes of the IRS, money you make from selling goods online is considered income, and you may have to pay taxes on it.
There's Venmo, PayPal, Airbnb, Poshmark, eBay. If it's income, they want it reported. Let's say you sold a Taylor Swift ticket that you acquired for $250 for $1,000. That's taxable income. And so the IRS wants to hear from StubHub or Ticketmaster or whatever platform you used about these sales.
We'll talk to Wall Street Journal tax reporter Laura Saunders after the break.
Various sites make selling goods online easy, but a maze of rules about how much of that money from sales is taxable can be confusing.
Which online platforms does the IRS consider when taxing sales on sites like eBay, Poshmark and Airbnb?
Wall Street Journal tax reporter Laura Saunders joins me. Laura, what kinds of platforms are we talking about?
Oh, we're talking about a lot of these platforms. There's Venmo, PayPal, Airbnb, Poshmark, eBay, Ticketmaster, StubHub.
So people do a lot of business on those sites. Why does the IRS want people to report that money?
If it's income, they want it reported. There's a lot of nuance here. Let's say you sold a Taylor Swift ticket that you acquired for $250 for $1,000. That's taxable income. And so the IRS wants to hear from StubHub or Ticketmaster or whatever platform you used about these sales. You really should report the income anyway yourself, but this is kind of a check. Now, on the other hand, people don't always owe tax. What if you're cleaning out your closet?
When is income from selling items online considered taxable rather than personal use sales?
and selling some designer luxury items on Poshmark. But they won't be sold for original costs or at a profit. They're sold at a discount, so you don't have a profit. And there is no tax due. And this is a very confused world.
For people who did make money and it winds up being income, how would they report that money that they've made?
It goes on as other income on your tax return. And there's a system for that. And the software providers will ask you about it. So really reporting it is not hard. The deciding to report it is a different thing.
How should sellers report online-sale proceeds on their tax returns?
So how does the IRS know about this income?
We have this form. It's called Form 1099-K. It's one of a lot of Form 1099s. And these forms report income both to you and to the IRS from a third-party payer like eBay or Ticketmaster. So they will just report the gross income, and then it's up to you to put it on your tax return. But 1099-K, it's like an enforcement mechanism so that you don't, quote, forget some income.
So it's the platform that fills out the form.
The platform fills out the form. They send a copy to you and a copy to the IRS.
And just to be clear, no taxes are taken out?
No, there's no withholding on these payments. That's why we have 1099 forms. We also have them on bank interest. We have them on brokerage returns for 1099-B. There's 1099-INT. There's 1099-DIV for dividends. So this is just one of many kinds of 1099s.
Now, the IRS's rule regarding the threshold for reporting income on the 1099, it's changed a few times in recent years. Where does it stand now?
Well, it's really bounced around. And it says one thing in the law, which is income over $600, but to prevent a blizzard of forms that are useless and don't make sense, the IRS has given them a more lenient treatment. So for 2023, the threshold for a 1099 form is more than 200 transactions and $20,000.
So income through these platforms below $20,000, a 1099 form would not be triggered?
correct if there are also fewer than 200 transactions. Now, let's just talk about how this would work. Say that you have a really nice lake property that you could rent for $5,000 a week. And let's say you rent it for 10 weeks during the summer for $50,000. Will that be reported to the IRS? No, because there were only 10 transactions. And so the threshold is 200 transactions and $20,000.
But given all the business that people do online these days, is the IRS likely to eventually reduce that number back to closer to $600?
What they've done is that, again, for 2024, they said the threshold provisionally will be $5,000.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:02–1:08
2
Which online platforms does the IRS consider when taxing sales on sites like eBay, Poshmark and Airbnb?
1:08–1:58
3
When is income from selling items online considered taxable rather than personal use sales?
1:58–2:31
4
How should sellers report online-sale proceeds on their tax returns?
2:31–7:34
Speakers
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