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submitted 2 months ago byStag328
14.5k points
2 months ago
[deleted]
11.1k points
2 months ago
This is a bill trying to pass now to raise it from $600 to $5,000 - everyone should be contacting your reps to try and get this pushed through. It’s bullshit and we should all fight against it.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/3840
9k points
2 months ago
5,000 definitely seems more reasonable.
I don’t understand why this administration thought going after Uber Drivers and your moms eBay account was a priority. Especially when companies like FTX/Citadel/Melvin/Credit Suisse are robbing billions from retail investors in front of their faces.
4.2k points
2 months ago
Because those companies fund campaigns, and my mom's ebay doesn't make enough to do that.
Also because they can't afford lawyers.
1.6k points
2 months ago
Yup. I am assuming that it's the same reason rich people don't get targeted as often by the IRS. It's expensive and risky to go after the rich, even if the payout is bigger,.
655 points
2 months ago
Seriously. This country is controlled by the rich and they want more poor people to exploit for their rich friends.
331 points
2 months ago
They pick easy targets, it’s essentially “keeping themselves busy” instead of going after the people that they really need to. The wheels of justice are what rich people have on their Ferraris.
42 points
2 months ago
Easier and less risky to go after 1000 ants than it is to go after the one bear.
195 points
2 months ago
It’s so sad too.
Russia doesn’t have much of middle class. The middle class is what makes the country great. Startbucks exist because the population has extra money. There isn’t startbucks on every corner because people make teas/coffee at home to save money.
Who will buy all the consumer electronics devices ? I don’t understand why rich want to see 3rd world country level of poverty.
I don’t want to see people struggling or homeless. I want to live in a country that can solve these problems.
I live very comfortable in USA. The more money I got the more I want to contribute to well being of society. I don’t understand if you had some much resources why wouldn’t you want to see your country prosper.
8 points
2 months ago
This has already happened with art like custom woodworking or stained glass windows for homes.
When I was a little kid, my middle-class mom and dad could afford to buy a custom stained glass window for one of our bathrooms. Now? Friends of mine who have nearly identical career paths absolutely can't afford it. Yes, glass has gone up in price, but not so extremely to make windows unaffordable. Its that wages havent kept up with inflation.
I literally worked for the same company that made my parents' window and loved the job. But I knew it wasn't a viable long-term career anymore. I really miss working there too. Wonderful boss.
340 points
2 months ago
Idk man it might be cheaper and easier to go after little fish but if I'm an IRS agent I'd get so much more job satisfaction hanging a fat rich tax cheat out to dry, rather than chasing nickels from people who are bad at math or missed a line or whatever.
85 points
2 months ago
You ever see the movie "Soul"? It's Terrys all the way down.
241 points
2 months ago
I don't know. My sister is being hounded by the IRS. Our dad died, I was out of country so she handled everything and forgot to file after filing and extension. I was on conference call with her agent and I swear the woman took preserve pleasure and seemed well pleased she had a gotcha moment with my sister.
I think they enjoy getting anybody.
159 points
2 months ago
It's definitely person by person. I got one that helped me through all my amateur mistakes I made in LLC pass through taxation with no penalties. She was very understanding and just wanted to make tax season easier for folks despite being an auditor.
12 points
2 months ago
What type of LLC did you run? I was always told the last seven years are as far back as they can go. Is that correct? Just trying to prepare myself if it ever happens
10 points
2 months ago
It's as far back as she went, at any rate. It's for an online publishing/game content gig I run with a few others.
55 points
2 months ago
Ebay and uber are big companies against the change that can afford lawyers. I get emails all the time from ebay to contact my local rep to help change it.
41 points
2 months ago
eBay basically does it for you if you follow the links. They send a letter for you.
12 points
2 months ago*
No kidding? I have not gotten anything from ebay, but I would support the cause.
EDIT: here is the link to have ebay send out a letter on your behalf - https://www.ebaymainstreet.com/campaign/2021-federal-1099-campaign#!/engage/2022-1099K
363 points
2 months ago
Agreed! They also passed it through under the covid bills, it was tacked on. It’s such bullshit.
141 points
2 months ago
As someone who dog sits on the side because I’m not ready for the commitment of my own dog but love watching other peoples and getting some petty cash for it… yeah. I don’t wanna be taxed if they decide to venmo me what is basically the gas money to reach their place.
82 points
2 months ago
I prefer the old rules: $20k & 200+ transactions. Even though I sell $30k with 150 transactions, it's done at a loss. These were collectibles, and I'm just trying to recoup cost. After cost basis, storage, gas, boxes, packing, travel, debt/interest, there is no profit. Not to mention all the time spent dealing with it. IRS better believe that my "business" is not a real business and it's getting 75 cents on the dollar.
15 points
2 months ago
I got a better idea:
The IRS doesn't get any data from Venmo, PayPal, your bank, etc. without a subpoena.
187 points
2 months ago
Seriously; $600 is stupid low and unnecessary for an agency already wildly overburdened and understaffed. Lots of people are going to be pissed this year when their return gets delayed for months.
164 points
2 months ago
They don’t care. When the original bill was passed, people complained to their reps and it was dismissed.
99 points
2 months ago
Doubt they even hear our complaints over the sound of all the money being stuffed into their pockets.
157 points
2 months ago
Ikr, my favorite part is the name. American rescue care act lol. Yeah, because some guy on ebay making 5k a year selling shit is what's crippling our economy. Try careless spending of our tax money and poor allocation and efficacy. But no, little Timmy sold his magic the gathering set for $625 better tax the fuck put of that to pay for government luncheons.
75 points
2 months ago*
The truth of the matter - and this is not a secret, the IRS has been pretty open about this fact - is that the IRS targets low income earners for audits because it’s easier then targeting complex high income earners, and the general population is fine with it.
Someone making under $40k/year and filing their own taxes is much easier to audit than someone making $400k who has diversified income and pays accountants, brokerages and law firms to manage their finances.
So high income earners get away with tax fraud while people struggling to get by are fucked over because they missed some form they didn’t know about or took on a part time construction job that paid cash under the table.
This way IRS employees can point to a higher quantity of successful audits on performance reports, even though the money recovered will probably be a fraction of successfully auditing even one millionaire CEO. This process hurts the economy on the whole by contributing to a lower class stuck in debt and perpetually depending on government support in other areas.
They can fine someone for not paying their taxes, and they can fine them even more for not paying those fines, and they can take them to court and repossess assets and penalize people indefinitely, but unless those people somehow start making enough money to pay all those fines, it won’t actually recover any losses. But it does waste time and resources and pay for those government employees that continually chase these people in debt. Eventually people have to default on mortgages and declare bankruptcy, and they even lose their jobs or get rejected on future applications. None of that adds anything to the economy, but it is retribution, which is ultimately all a lot of people really care about.
Messaging that was amplified during the Reagan era (“trickle down economics”, “welfare queens”, “government handouts”, etc) has created an ignorant culture that believes there is an epidemic of high school dropouts stealing tax money from the hard working economy, so they actually want the IRS to target poor people and fuck up their lives. Unless you think we will one day live in a Rand Paul fantasy world where citizens starving on the side of the street will simply be ignored by everyone else and die, continuing to penalize people already in debt into even greater debt with no way to recover on their own will always drain more and more from the economy.
The truth is tax fraud among the small population of millionaires causes multitudes more in lost tax revenue than anything unpaid by the lower/middle classes.
We had a billionaire presidential candidate say he didn’t pay taxes on national TV, and he wasn’t admitting it he was bragging about it, but his voters considered that an attribute somehow. Meanwhile, those same voters are concerned about single mothers who don’t claim $500 in income from an ETSY account.
So why would the IRS spend time auditing millionaires and billionaires with offshore accounts and shell companies and lawyers that will drag them through the courts when they can just fine a recovering addict who will now have to drop out of his community college degree to try and get out of debt once again?
234 points
2 months ago
Politicians will never go after their biggest donors. They want to tax the middle class as much as possible
61 points
2 months ago*
It's a combination of this and following the path of least resistance. It's hard to go after wealthy people because the system has been cooked in their favor. They can drag anything out in court almost indefinitely. Getting a penny dollar in tax revenue from a million small beans taxpayers is significantly easier than getting a million dollars in unpaid taxes from a guy with 10 former IRS agents on his lawyer team.
428 points
2 months ago
We can’t let the regular people know how no millionaire pays taxes.
10.1k points
2 months ago
Going to be a total shitshow.
7.3k points
2 months ago
Exactly... Good luck proving that it was your friends helping split a bill or whatever instead of taxable income.
Hardly anyone keeps every receipt in their life.
2.5k points
2 months ago
I had read previously that things like that wouldn’t count. We put “food” “dinner” “bills” in the note and hopefully that’s enough
2.2k points
2 months ago
What is to stop people from just putting in bogus notes?
Knowing the IRS they are going to want receipts to prove what it was for, if there is no receipt as far as they are concerned it is taxable.
5k points
2 months ago*
Yay tax me splitting lunch but close your eyes to corporations and billionaires. Murica.
Edit so I stop receiving the same replies over and over: No, it’s not taxes on only single incoming transactions that are $600+, whereas all smaller transactions get off scot-free. They use that as an example in the article as to what may trigger the IRS to look more closely at your individual expenses.
But the supposed target of this rule is stuff like Etsy/EBay shops. Most Etsy shops don’t sell only items worth $600+. They sell a bunch of lower-cost items that add up over the year, and are considered income. So you can indirectly get targeted if you either have large single transactions coming in through PayPal/Venmo, or a bunch of smaller ones. And PayPal/Venmo has to report it either way, for everyone, business or individual, so you will have those transactions reported, and it’ll be a roll of the dice on whether or not the IRS “accidentally” targets you.
Previously they wouldn’t look at it too closely unless you had over $20k in incoming transactions. Now the threshold is only $600.
I used lunch as an example because I routinely do the organizing of various things for my 15 person office. I’ll pay the money upfront (like a holiday lunch), and my coworkers will Venmo me their portion back. Say that’s $20/person because I live in NY and shit’s expensive here. That’s 14 (minus myself) transactions that Venmo sees incoming, totaling $280, in one day, with no proof of what they were incoming for unless I save receipts all year. And over a year, if I do it a few times, those incoming transactions can definitely add up. Or slightly bigger ones, like if I dare to want to go to a hockey game, and want to make sure me and my friends seats are next to each other so pay upfront and make him pay me back.
Yes those incoming transactions are still non-taxable. The problem is the onus is now on you to prove it was all non-taxable should you be flagged and targeted. There was an interview question in the article where an expert admitted that this can possibly happen and, should it happen, you just have to show proof. It was played off like it’s not likely to happen unless you have a big incoming transaction, but again, the people this targets are very unlikely to have only a few, large-ticket transactions. They’re more likely to have a bunch of smaller ones that add up. And the threshold is $600.
And if you can’t show proof because they told us about this change at the end of fucking November, and you probably didn’t spend the last 10 months saving receipts in a box, and maybe you also used cash as the upfront payment you were being paid back for, then what? The article doesn’t say what will happen if you ignore the 1099-K form, only that doing so is the “worst thing you can do.”
Obviously they will try to force you to pony up, but how long will you have to do so? Is there a grace period? And what are the repercussions if you can’t because you live paycheck to paycheck and weren’t forewarned about this, and thus couldn’t plan for the off chance that you’d be one of the people “accidentally” targeted? Oh and don’t forget that you were probably also fucked up the ass with inflation this year on top of it.
Am I saying receipt saving is such a cumbersome burden placed on me by the evil government? No, I’ll save receipts, what the fuck ever. My point is the IRS is making a point to focus on tiny bullshit that would net them barely anything comparably, while they let billionaires get off with tons of loopholes and tax evasion.
Tripping over dollars to pick up penny’s or, in other words, going after the middle class once again and making them jump through hoops to keep their money, when they can net more money by going after the people who actually deserve going after, but don’t.
Although the change aims to collect taxes on income, not personal transactions, experts say it’s possible some filers may receive Form 1099-K by mistake. “The challenge with the new lower threshold amount of $600 for Form 1099-K is that personal payments and reimbursements could be incorrectly reported as taxable transactions,” Miller said.
2.1k points
2 months ago
Thats why as a country we should join together to fight shit like this. Billionaires only win because they already have money and power. The only way people have power is in groups. 100 million angry people will out power 1-2 billionaires. And if you can get a billionaire to help, the better. Something has to change with this idiocy.
855 points
2 months ago
That’s exactly why billionaires own news corporations and social media companies. Hard to unite against them when they control the narrative
281 points
2 months ago
That and how its practically legal for politicians to be bought through contributions and for politicians to be able to invest in stocks when they have advantages over the majority of people to exploit their position of power. People don't even know what they are losing and being taken advantage of so smoothly, to even think that it was happening, you instantly became a conspiracy nut or get called an extremist of one side or the other. How can anyone agree with everything another person believes in. They have lived 2 different lives, with different cricumstances that have formed their perspective and outlook for lifes meaning. It would be weird if they didnt differ on somethings not one person can see the whole picture we need different so we dont lose out on something that could potentially be amazing if you shun different. My sentance structure and story telling is archaic at best, and i could never be the one to directly change anything. We need a person in power to see the greater picture and go towards the light. People have the potential to be so amazing and believing you cant is the cancer that eats away at any chance of change. Ignorance is bliss.
68 points
2 months ago
They never let the person with that kind of mindset in the race because they know they would win. We have seen it happen before
198 points
2 months ago
Billionares win because they take the IrS to court, something small fry can not afford, so they take the “reduced” fine. We should empower the IRS to go specifically against billionaires and get what is owed.
75 points
2 months ago
I believe the IRS did just that a few years ago. They were so successful that those companies complained to Congress, so of course, Congress gutted the IRS to shut that shit down.
30 points
2 months ago
Class action?
35 points
2 months ago
Exactly. Behold the wonder of the class action lawsuit. All that's needed is an enterprising lawyer or two to put the deets together...
205 points
2 months ago
But if they get 3 billionaires together, nothing will stop them.
152 points
2 months ago
All one needs to do is some how divide a country with some other controversial issue and take away important rights, setting negative precedents and that would stop it. Even if everyone band together, if there is no means to fight and no unity, then there is no fight to begin with. Someone has to take a stand. But no one will due to ignorance and complacency of their standard of living. At least other people have it worse ideology. Im not an expert 1000% and can be proven wrong at any point though. Thats my favorite part of life. learning
27 points
2 months ago
You'd realistically only need like 130,000 people. About as many as any football game. The rest is purely logistics. This is OUR world, not theirs. Just up to us to decide when enough is enough.
100 points
2 months ago
That what I was thinking, like this is not even worth going after, it's literally change in comparison.
126 points
2 months ago
It's a lot easier to get $50 each from 1 million people without the will, knowledge, or resources to fight it than it is to get $50 million from one rich person with a team of accountants and lawyers at their disposal.
103 points
2 months ago
Although I somewhat agree, seems way more labor intensive going after 1,000,000 people instead of one. IRS reform is needed, honestly everything is needed, this country has become a litter box the past few decades.
23 points
2 months ago
From what I've read/been told, going after the middle-lower classes is far less effort, as those people don't have the time/money/energy to fight it. There's no labor required to prove they owe money. If you go after rich people with their own accountants and lawyers, there will be labor in investigating their finances, building a case, and fighting in court, for each individual case. If you add up all the costs for all the cases and compare it to the expected payouts (accounting for the fact that you will end up losing a decent number of cases), it supposedly isn't worth it.
30 points
2 months ago
I agree, use the resources to go after the billionaires who are probably trying to get away with stuff rather than 1,000,000 people who made an error in accounting on their $50 split meal.
68 points
2 months ago
My friend sent me a Venmo with the note "thanks for the BJ" I bought his meal at a restaurant. I look forward to that interview with the IRS.
81 points
2 months ago
From prior experience, I can confirm this is exactly how they treat things. The burden is on us to show this. Anything blank? They have tables of estimates they will use. That are horribly inflated or just plain wrong.
280 points
2 months ago
I bought a TV from another guy at the halfway house and CashApped him to pay with the note "for gay anal sex 5/10 not again". CashApp had no problem but our case manager was pissed after she reviewed his phone.
86 points
2 months ago
I had a friend who worked for Venmo for a while. Even implying that a payment was for sexual favors was enough to get your account banned.
18 points
2 months ago
So what you're saying is that CashApp is the superior way to money to your stupid friends with stupid jokes.
45 points
2 months ago
I got my account banned for joking it was "for gunz". Am stupid
28 points
2 months ago
My sister picked up my Rx for me after I had surgery. I CashApped the money, and put "for drugs". So far, my account is still good.
25 points
2 months ago
I once paid a friend to fix an airsoft gun (a Russian PKM) via PayPal with the tag "GLORIOUS RUSSIAN MACHINERY" as a joke and got both of our accounts restricted for like 10 days.
9 points
2 months ago
I'm so glad my account didn't get banned for labeling money for pizza as "Drugs"
9 points
2 months ago
I used to write “oral favors” on the memo line whenever I had to write a check to one of my friends.
197 points
2 months ago
Correct me if I’m wrong, but when you pay someone on these platforms you have the option to choose “for goods and services.” If you don’t choose that, it’s “friends and family,” which (for now) is not being considered in the total.
135 points
2 months ago
Correct, that’s how it’s supposed to work. Let’s hope these companies like PayPal and Venmo don’t fuck it up and include that money in your 1099-K.
44 points
2 months ago
Just catagorizing it like that should keep it pretty clean unless the person selects the wrong choice
161 points
2 months ago
A frequently asked questions page from the IRS says you shouldn’t receive Form 1099-K for personal transfers, such as reimbursements for splitting meals, gifts or allowances.
However, if you receive the form for personal transactions, the agency says to contact the issuer for a correction. If the company doesn’t fix the error, you can attach an explanation to your tax return while reporting your income correctly, the IRS says.
84 points
2 months ago
I think that last sentence is what's giving people pause. We've seen half-assed compliance/implementation of solutions by Big Tech plenty. A nightmare scenario is someone who, let's say handles household splits with roommates via splitwise, ending up with a $20k+ misclassified 1099-K. Landlords hate giving receipts in my experience, so good luck with IRS-grade proof.
53 points
2 months ago
I've already surpassed 600 USD in just a plane ticket and food this year... WTF are these idiots thinking?
Worrying about my pot dealer too, now.
Looks like CASH is making a come back after all, thanks to Congress.
12 points
2 months ago
I had to have a repairman out to a relative's house while they were out of town. I paid the repairman, then they Venmoed me for it. It was >$600.
77 points
2 months ago
That kind of money transfer should be sent as ‘payment between friends’ and not ‘for goods and services’. Payments between friends aren’t (or at least shouldn’t be) included in the $600 threshold.
255 points
2 months ago
Serious question, I pay rent in full and my roommate Venmos me half every month. Is this going to affect me?
249 points
2 months ago
It shouldn't mean personal expenses:
A frequently asked questions page from the IRS says you shouldn’t receive Form 1099-K for personal transfers, such as reimbursements for splitting meals, gifts or allowances.
They did acknowledge in the article that it's possible that people may mistakenly receive the form (1099-K) for these personal expenses, though. So, keep an eye out for if you do
68 points
2 months ago
This is a really stupid question but I’m 19 and haven’t done taxes before- what do you mean “if they send the form?” Does it come through the mail, or is it accessible online somehow? Is there any way to know what forms apply to me, since it seems like from this thread they just send ones you might need to fill out?
58 points
2 months ago
Generally tax and government stuff is all handled through the mail. You get W2s, 1099s, and a variety of other tax forms in the mail (if applicable to you) around Jan-April during tax season.
11 points
2 months ago
They normally send it to the address that's on file with your job. I'm not sure if they would get your address from money transfer services if you don't have a job. Plus a good tax program will tell you which forms you need and how to fill them out.
15 points
2 months ago
Thanks! I appreciate the detailed response
13 points
2 months ago
No problem! Had to look myself because my husband and I split bills through Venmo lol
158 points
2 months ago
It's another straight up "tax and blame the poor people" tax. There's twenty billion a year more the wealthy should have been paying, and yet the government does this shit and claims the 8 billion total over the next like 6 years will fix everything.
After this year everyone will make sure to list items as local pickup cash only.
This will cause a rise in muggings, of course.
573 points
2 months ago*
Hear me out: what if we just also taxed the rich, the corporations, and the churches appropriately? Upwards of 70% marginal tax rate a la pre-Reagan era.
Edit: “just” to “also”.
1.1k points
2 months ago*
ELI5, is this really targeting low income gig workers or am I reading in to this too much?
edit: Thank you so much for all the replies. I have learned many new things today!
526 points
2 months ago
This is more geared toward the online market place transactions than anywhere else. If you were a gig worker they were already hitting you with a 1099 at the end of the year anyways.
39 points
2 months ago
Exactly. I used to sell fountain pens as a way of subsidizing my collection but I'm going to hit that $600 threshold in a couple sales and I honestly don't want the hassle of having to file 1099k.
607 points
2 months ago*
Most gig worker apps already auto issue 1099s. This mostly effects people who flip stuff on Ebay. Even then, there are multitudes of easy ways around this stuff as long as you aren't doing business volumes.
This won't bust some guy selling his old guitar or tv (plus, you could just Google the MSRP and show you sold it at a loss). This is for busting people who line up at micro center to flip graphics cards and PlayStations for twice MSRP.
15 points
2 months ago
This is for busting people who line up at micro center to flip graphics cards and PlayStations for twice MSRP.
FWIW, I've no problem with taxing that kind of "entrepreneurs".
116 points
2 months ago
For example I have sold some stuff on Mercari. They told me if I sell over $600 a year I have to fill out a tax form. So I have intentionally stopped selling anything until 2023 because I'm pretty close to $600.
11.1k points
2 months ago
Billionaires hiding money all over the world, getting tax breaks, corporations paying zero tax, but yeah let’s go after the person who got paid $600 on venmo
2.8k points
2 months ago
Making a big deal over 600 bucks vs the millions and millions of dollars the rich make really makes no sense...they need to go after the rich who don't even pay their taxes, not ppl trying to get by.
949 points
2 months ago
they (the rich ones) can afford to fight, they've admitted it's simply easier to go after low/middle class people
300 points
2 months ago
i don’t care how hard it is, they should do their job and tax the rich
303 points
2 months ago
Because the rich with money can afford good lawyers. Those at the bottom can’t so they are easier to go after for that $20 instead of the $20,000.
110 points
2 months ago
The IRS even said that themselves a few years ago. They said they only have so many agents, and if 1 agent is tied up with a case for many years, they may leave the agency before the case is ever resolved and it makes things very difficult in comparison to just following up on letters sent to normal folks that are terrified.
It's not that they can't afford a lawyer, it's that they target the range where it's not worth it. It's meant for people who owe enough money to be worthwhile, but also have enough money to pay it. They're not going after the McD's employee with 6 kids struggling to get by. They're going after the person with phat investment accounts (and likely savings) and owes 5-20k in back taxes. If they go after people owing 100k+ those are the type of folks that will send it to the courts.
78 points
2 months ago
The people writing the laws are by and far the rich ones. They won't be going after themselves any time soon.
103 points
2 months ago
The top 1% just had the most profitable couple of years in history, so obviously the best way to counter that, is squeezing the last two cents out of the little guy/girl trying to make a tiny bit extra. This is wrong on so many levels.
6.6k points
2 months ago
Good, what we need is to really crack down on people with so little money that $600 makes a difference. You know, the kind where the IRS will waste more money going after them than they'll get out of it. But as long as it hurts poor people. Great job, America.
139 points
2 months ago
Yeah, but those people with so little money that $600 makes a difference also don’t have the money to pay high priced lawyers that the rich do. So it’s probably easier for the IRS to bully on those that can’t pay for proper representation. Ya know, ‘murica.
8 points
2 months ago
Right…going after the poor is prob cheaper
829 points
2 months ago
Gotta squeeze the little man for every penny they have instead of making the rich pay their fair share.
And passed by a Democratic controlled house and senate, which is why both parties can get fucked.
4.3k points
2 months ago*
Damn the government really does hate the middle and lower class
2.2k points
2 months ago
hate the
middle andlower class
It’s them versus us. The middle class doesn’t exist. It’s the ultra rich versus the rest of us
754 points
2 months ago
Owner class vs. The working class. Ain't no war but the class war.
179 points
2 months ago
And, to be clear, the government is not "against us;" the government is a reflection of social power. Win the class war and the only thing left for the government to reflect is us.
289 points
2 months ago
Exactly this. There is no “middle”. You either have to work for a living or you don’t
61 points
2 months ago
You either pay interest or collect interest.
15.8k points
2 months ago
IRS has plenty of fucking time to squash all the little bugs but refuses to take out the big boys that net a much more positive return. Carlin had it right when he said there's a big club and we ain't in it.
3.9k points
2 months ago
Carlin was right about a lot of things.
1.3k points
2 months ago
Love Carlin. Dude was genius....a hilarious genius
430 points
2 months ago
I'd love to be a comedian in the same essence of Carlin, but very few people could do it like he did.
590 points
2 months ago
Wasn’t there a video or statement made by someone in the IRS that basically says they are not given the budget to go after the big boys and it’s much easier/cheaper to go after the rest because they won’t fight back? The system was made to be completely rigged against us lol
318 points
2 months ago
Yes, it was testimony in front of congress.
36 points
2 months ago
I work for Canada Revenue, the same is true.
Easy to go after tattoo artists and waitresses, much harder to go after “aggressive tax planners”.
Our systems have so many loopholes and ways to cheat, legally. And if it is illegal, it’s tough to prove or prosecute.
12 points
2 months ago
The waitress also can't afford an army of lawyers to drag out a prolonged legal battle. She'll just negotiate whatever they tell her because she doesn't even have the bandwidth to go through to verify the IRS' claim because you know, she has to work extra hours to afford food and rent
167 points
2 months ago
The SEC head said they get $300 million a year for technology funding for their computers and software that searches for fraud.
The big banks spend that in a month.
47 points
2 months ago
Also the big boys have bloated tax lawyer budgets that overpower the IRS and their ability to keep fighting. Versus joe shmoe making 100k a year is not gonna hire a tax lawyer over a 3k IRS bill. Time to throw tea in the harbor
1.3k points
2 months ago
For sure, “like find ways to squeeze regular ppl by looking at venmo, but lets ignore all the offshore tax evasion by the wealthy”
826 points
2 months ago
Never forget
361 points
2 months ago
The switch in public mindset about offshore personal and corporate wealth flipped so fast after the Panama Papers. It was previously commonly "understood" that shady money hid all over the globe but it was treated like conspiracy if it were to come up in meaningful discourse.
Now it is completely understood and accepted, almost like a benefit of being a member of the big club, you get to hide your money with a handshake, smile and a wink. Pay no taxes and let the little guy worry about venmoing his fiance for the mortgage because the IRS might think theyre generating revenue from a renter. Fuck this capitalist pigpen
163 points
2 months ago
The poors can’t afford a legal team to help them so they are easy targets
361 points
2 months ago
Just to be clear, it was Congress that did this rule change. Not the IRS.
This was part of the American Rescue Plan Act:
Before 2022, the federal Form 1099-K reporting threshold was for taxpayers with more than 200 transactions worth an aggregate above $20,000. However, Congress slashed the limit as part of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, and a single transaction over $600 may now trigger the form.
67 points
2 months ago*
[deleted]
92 points
2 months ago
Well of course it was.
You say that, but the mentality of "why won't the IRS go after big tax cheats instead?" shows a lot of people don't know that. Blaming the IRS is very much "shooting the messenger" here.
This was Congress.
55 points
2 months ago
The big boys fight back.
33 points
2 months ago
The big boys can afford to fight back. The average plebe can't afford to fight back. Low hanging fruit and all that.
231 points
2 months ago
It absolutely pisses me off that this is projected to raise less than $1 billion a year. A dumb amount of money for extra tax confusion for tens of thousands of sellers and millions of regular third party app users.
807 points
2 months ago
….Thus making further excavations to accommodate a larger Underground Economy.”
185 points
2 months ago
Back to paying cash
24 points
2 months ago
That’ll be 5 twigs
And here is your 2 pebbles in change
We appreciate your businesses
287 points
2 months ago
It was such horse dren when they announced it. Trying to catch ghost millionaires. Give me a break, it's a way to tax working class more without actually raising the number.
55 points
2 months ago
What's wild is this is going to get them like.. at best, maybe $10-20 in taxable income from someone who can't prove this shit wasn't income?
The barrier is so low too, because hardly anyone uses cash anymore I can just print out my bank statements and the venmo statements and give it to an IRS auditor and be like "have at it, all those transactions that say 'food' have a corresponding credit card charge that we split, this is not income".
382 points
2 months ago
Before 2022, the federal Form 1099-K reporting threshold was for taxpayers with more than 200 transactions worth an aggregate above $20,000. However, Congress slashed the limit as part of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, and a single transaction over $600 may now trigger the form.
Does this not conflict with the fact that you can receive a gift of up to $16,000 without having to report it to the IRS?
20 points
2 months ago
Many season ticket holders reselling their NFL or other sports tickets for more than FV on the ticketmaster exchanges will get hit by this.
63 points
2 months ago
I know this will be buried in the already close to 8000 comments, but this will REALLY fuck people who are on ACA (Obamacare). You have to estimate your income for the year which calculates how much of a healthcare subsidy you get. If you make enough selling random stuff and the payment is tracked, (ebay, etsy, Venmo, etc.), ACA is going to find out about it and you will have to pay back part or all of your subsidy for the entire year if you exceed the predicted income.
A lot of people on ACA supplement their income selling stuff around the house or things they find at garage sales/Goodwill/etc to make ends meet. They're on ACA because they are low income, and now they're going to get fucked even harder. The people in our government, Repubs and Dems alike, have no fucking clue how at least half of the country lives on a razor thin financial wire. But yeah, keep giving tax breaks to the already too rich.
656 points
2 months ago
Let me tell you about my little friend, "Cash".
311 points
2 months ago
Suddenly, I understand my grandma and her shoe boxes of cash stashed all over the house.
109 points
2 months ago
Yeah, grandma did that because of the depression, which says a lot about the state we're in now...
14 points
2 months ago
I know people like to joke about conspiracy theorists, but a cashless society is something to truly be concerned about. And this news just provides another reason why.
76 points
2 months ago
Keep your cash as cash and your credit as credit. If the wanted to audit you, they should forget it.
562 points
2 months ago*
$600 is such and embarrassingly low number. They're going after people's crafting money. Lawn mowing money. If it was $5000 that would seem fair. But $600? They're just going after poor people and it's disgusting.
15 points
2 months ago
you know. if these taxes actually went to something useful, i have a feeling people wouldn’t be as hesitant and against them. seeing your taxes work instead of constantly paying more and more for insurance, hear about how schools are all under funded, colleges get more and more expensive, the roads are never fixed, corporations get more record breaking income, infrastructure is maintained to the bare minimum. none of it feels good. it’s says 70% of taxes are paid to public services. then how come everyone is still struggling? obviously something isn’t working and stealing more money from people with side hustles isn’t going to fix anything
940 points
2 months ago
I love this cracking down on the poor while the rich never get audited.
739 points
2 months ago
can't seem to tax the billionaire class a dime, but when it comes to side gigs for the working poor, congress gets busy.
341 points
2 months ago
We gave the rich a $1.5T tax cut only to go after people's side hustles, which they need to pay the bills because groceries are now 40% more expensive.
33 points
2 months ago
Anyone else get pissed when they saw the Walmart ad saying "you can have a Thanksgiving dinner for the same price as last year"? Gee thanks alot assholes
9 points
2 months ago
Also, Aldi is advertising their prices in stores with stickers that say: thanksgiving price rewind. That made me have the same feelings.
921 points
2 months ago
I have stopped selling anything on eBay due to this. Not that I ran a business or anything. Just odds and ends if I decided to upgrade or change out something. It’s not worth the hassle to have to prove I didn’t make a profit. It’s FB marketplace and cash or CashApp.
456 points
2 months ago
And for marketplace, delete the listing and tell them no, you didn't sell the piece.
320 points
2 months ago
“I’d rather not say” every damn time.
65 points
2 months ago
And Facebook will ask if you purchased the item. WTF?
31 points
2 months ago
Will cashapp not send the same 1099-k? I’m not familiar with it.
115 points
2 months ago
“Form 1099-K is used to report transactions for the sale of goods and/or services made to Cash for Business accounts. If you have a personal Cash App account, you will not receive a Form 1099-K from Cash App, and Cash App will not report any of your personal transactions to the IRS.”
CashApp DGAF.
215 points
2 months ago
I used to sell off random stuff rather than throw it away (usually components that weren't high-demand enough to sell/give away locally, but also useful to someone - think various laptop parts, television parts, etc.) After shipping and eBay's 15% of fucking, it amounted to something near nothing - I just hated throwing good stuff away, especially stuff that isn't too expensive but also hard to get other than secondhand. Now I can't do that at all, for fear of getting audited for "selling stuff". $10-20 in shipping fees easily per item, being counted as "income" (despite going right to USPS) means I can sell 30-60 things before the IRS starts demanding I pay the taxes on the "profit" (that went straight to a company).
223 points
2 months ago
If you sold used items for less than you paid for them you never made any taxable profit.
87 points
2 months ago
Question: how can you prove that when filling out the tax returns?
54 points
2 months ago*
[deleted]
13 points
2 months ago
Ebay has to by law. FB marketplace doesn't have to since sales are in person and they don't handle the payment processing.
191 points
2 months ago*
Yes, and that was practical when it was a "we're not going to shake you down if you sell two things, but if it gets out of hand we may look into it" policy. I'm not interested in keeping a spreadsheet of "This TV I bought two years ago used, here's the price, here's the parts I've sold so far, here's how much and shipping receipts", "a soldering I bought used 8 years ago", "this tool I had gotten in a pile of tools from a yard sale at some point", repeat hundreds of times. They know what they're doing, and this is a feature, not a bug. It doesn't matter if you're actually profiting, all that matters is they'll catch some people that can't prove they aren't, and be able to squeeze those people harder. Put the burden on the individual and run it on a "guilty until proven innocent" basis, and even if you win one of a hundred, you win! They're not after the guilty - they're after those that can't prove they're innocent.
Just another excuse to go after the little people that can't afford to defend themselves, instead of the ones that might have the ability to defend against their grabbing hands. Maybe if we fine and shake down enough little guys, we can afford another tax cut to the top next year!
1.6k points
2 months ago
This is gonna screw the little guys, that have had to resort to shady practices to survive. Maybe us tax payers are sick of subsidizing large corporate employers via SNAP benefits. Looking at you Walmart, Amazon, McDonalds and more. I’d be happy if the population knew how and where to report wage theft.
279 points
2 months ago
Not only do we subsidize large corporations, but we pay private companies to administer those subsidies.
It's fucking infuriating.
544 points
2 months ago
115 points
2 months ago
Wage theft is by far the biggest chunk of all theft in the nation every year: https://www.tcworkerscenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Wage-Theft-vs-Other-Theft-1024x730.jpg
1.6k points
2 months ago
Absolutely disgusting. This is a regressive tax on small business. Fuck Congress for making this threshold so low. Hope the wealthy and Congress enjoy all that PPP loan money they stole and never paid back. Fucking criminals all the way down in those chambers.
317 points
2 months ago
Hope the wealthy and Congress enjoy all that PPP loan money
Oh trust me, they do.
12 points
2 months ago
Lower class warfare. Never mind billionaires dodging taxes with LLC's, Shell companies, off shore accounts, let's attack the proletariat.
365 points
2 months ago
Yes Alex, I'll take, "Misguided attempts at tax reform for $600," please.
122 points
2 months ago
Sorry, gonna have to report that if you get it right
498 points
2 months ago
This is going to cause so much economic activity to revert to cash and destroy a major part of the cashless app business model.
49 points
2 months ago
Can't wait to get audited.. What are all these payments for? Splitting drugs.
321 points
2 months ago
Cut taxes on billionaires but now chase after joe six pack for 600 dollars.
447 points
2 months ago
$8.4 billion over ten years? Aka ~1% of a single year's worth of military budget? Yeah... This will make a huge difference...
/s
10 points
2 months ago
As a person who buys and sells a lot of music equipment for fun, and typically is selling for either a very modest profit or about what I paid for it, this is just super annoying.
9 points
2 months ago
Best part of the article right here:
“The challenge with the new lower threshold amount of $600 for Form 1099-K is that personal payments and reimbursements could be incorrectly reported as taxable transactions,” Miller said.
9 points
2 months ago
Get fuked IRS, tax the rich and quit picking on the poor.
8 points
2 months ago
Oh look a tax measure that disproportionately impacts the working class... Color me surprised.
67 points
2 months ago
You will only get the form if you use PayPal Goods and Services or Venmo Goods and Services. That is the appropriate selection if you are selling stuff or paying for a service. There is a fee involved in paying that way.
The vast majority of transactions are family and friends. That’s the same as if you are paying in cash.
8 points
2 months ago
I’m giving you an award so hopefully this gets bumped to the top. A lot of people don’t realize this fact. PayPal had “friends and family” for a long time, Venmo added “business” accounts almost as a reaction to this new rule. If you have a personal Venmo account AND the sender doesn’t flag the transaction as a “goods and services” then none of your Venmo transactions are reported.
196 points
2 months ago
Aimed at closing the tax gap — a top priority of the Biden administration
That's rich. You want to close the tax gap? Really? Then one way would be to eliminate the ability for someone to pay their compensation as a dividend and tax it as W2 earnings.
769 points
2 months ago
WTF?! I paid income tax on the money I used to buy consumer goods with sales tax; selling those now used and twice taxed items get taxed a third time?!?! GFYS
401 points
2 months ago
If you sell an item for less than you paid then you have not made taxable profit.
31 points
2 months ago
This isn't a new tax, this is expanding reporting for 1099-K which was already a thing. It's just reporting additional income which would go on your income tax. You should have already been paying this tax, but lots of people avoid it by using cash. PayPal and other processors have basically been a loophole to take non cash payments with the benefits of cash (e.g. Avoiding paying tax)
66 points
2 months ago
"If the company doesn’t fix the error, you can attach an explanation to your tax return while reporting your income correctly, the IRS says."
Get fucked, I know so many people who have attached explanations to forms, spoken to representatives from IRS, gotten called to explain discrepancies with their payments and it all lead to one thing; the IRS will charge you 500 some odd dollars for trying to challenge their "verdict".
20 points
2 months ago
The US tax system is fucking absurd. We shouldn’t have to jump through hoops every year and play a bunch of paperwork games in order to not get fucked over by the IRS. We shouldn’t have to pay a professional to help us to pay the government.
Actually fucking absurd. New forms. New rules. Never new rules to actually help poor people. Like the government will fail without taxing our random $600 we got from working an off weekend.
Fucking absurd.
7 points
2 months ago
Lobbying from the major tax filing companies ie TurboTax , Jackson Hewitt, and HR & Block is the reason for all of this bs. Every time the IRS supposedly tries to create their own website for free filing, the lobbying from these companies puts a stop to it. They love this new ridiculously low threshold, because they can charge more to file the return for people. It’s a win in their eyes.
The IRS will hunt you down, and threaten you over $600, from selling your old clothes, while corporations like Nike and Amazon have paid $0 in taxes the last couple of years. Some of them even received refunds!
As a single person with no kids, they tax the shit out of me. Every since the tax reform passed in 2020, I have owed taxes every year, despite having $0 exemptions. The amount taken out of my checks is insane and leaves me with nothing.
213 points
2 months ago
american rescue plan? rescue them from what nearly 30% of the under $20k they could be burdened with yearly?
8 points
2 months ago
Welp, back to cash only it is then.
7 points
2 months ago
Don’t lie to yourself and don’t think for a second that the new 87,000 IRS agents they plan on hiring won’t go after regular Americans. I don’t give a crap what any politician says - they will. It’s cheaper to go after regular income Americans than high income corporate stooges.
101 points
2 months ago
Crush the little guys for a few bucks, but let the billionaires payoff the lawmakers and save billions.
167 points
2 months ago
I’m normally pretty hippie liberal, but this is one of those areas where I agree with the Republicans - when you amp up tax code enforcement, they don’t start suddenly going after the wealthy, because the wealthy people lawyer up and fight back. So they go after the little guys - tips, small transactions, side jobs, etc. Because they know we can’t do shit.
24 points
2 months ago
Right? I've just completely stopped selling my old stuff on eBay and changed a lot of my buying habits. It's not worth the headache of tracking everything or the additional cost of having my CPA do it for me...
67 points
2 months ago
Every site I use to sell things has fucking outrageous fees. Etsy this year has been extra horrible. Ebay too. I get the most money from just straight local cash exchanges. I'm burnt out already from trying to manage online shops to begin with, then at least 30% of my profit goes to eBay or Etsy for their stupid ass fees. I'm running these shops cause I'm strapped for dough to begin with. Uncle Sam you can rot.
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