ROCKFORD, Ill. (WTVO) — The Internal Revenue Service wants their share of your eBay profits.
As of 2023, if you sell over $600 worth of products in 2023, you will need to report it to the IRS on a Form 1099-K, which eBay will send you.
In prior years, the tax reporting only applied if a seller sold more than $20,000.
According to the Pew Research Group, one in four Americans makes money by selling items online.
The IRS issued a notice of the change in the reporting threshold on December 23rd, 2022, after a one-year delay designed to help ease the transition for taxpayers.
The new, lower threshold applies across all online marketplaces, not just eBay. It would also apply to Etsy, Uber, DoorDash, Facebook Marketplace, or other digital platforms which will have their income reported to the IRS.
“If you’re an online seller and you’re buying supplies or even driving your car to pick up items or ship items out, you should keep track of those [expenses],” Lisa Greene-Lewis, a CPA at TurboTax, told CBS MoneyWatch.
Accountants say receiving a 1099 doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll owe more in tax, but chances are the reporting obligations could come as a shock to casual sellers or digital platform workers who haven’t kept track of their expenses, such as shipping costs, boxes, and packing materials.
The American Rescue Plan of 2021 lowered reporting thresholds for business transactions to $600 per year; changed from the previous threshold of more than 200 transactions per year, exceeding an aggregate amount of $20,000.
Companies including eBay, Airbnb, Etsy, and PayPal have formed the “Coalition for 1099-K Fairness,” which is lobbying Congress to relax the $600 reporting rule.
eBay said in a statement, “We’ll continue to advocate for Congress to enact a permanent solution to reduce confusion and prevent burdensome and unnecessary reporting requirements in the future.”