If you resold Taylor Swift Eras Tour tickets, the IRS is watching — A new rule from the IRS is punishing those who resold tickets for more than $600 in profit with a tax penalty
If you resold Taylor Swift Eras Tour tickets, the IRS is watching — A new rule from the IRS is punishing those who resold tickets for more than $600 in profit with a tax penalty::A new rule from the IRS is punishing those who resold tickets for more than $600 in profit with a tax penalty.
https://gizmodo.com/irs-begins-taxing-concert-ticket-resale-taylor-swift-1850865265Open linkView original on lemmy.world560
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Somehow I doubt this will affect Ticketmaster, the biggest scalper of all
er, by default any profit is taxable for them while as a lemming you get a tax free $600 profit before it impacts you
but fuck ticketmaster anyway
I'm pretty sure they pay effectively zero tax because they found some interesting ways to make their profit appear 0 on paper.
I own a business and can agree with this statement.
I don’t understand what your point is. Of course this doesn’t impact Ticketmaster. They already pay taxes on income generated from selling tickets, so nothing changes. I can’t tell if you’re just saying dumb shit to get upvotes from other idiots or truly don’t have a clue.
Fuck scalpers
If you resell tickets for 600$ in profit, you’re not “the people”, you’re a scalper and I have no sympathy for you. This is a good rule.
That's just capitalists capitalizing. The IRS just wants a cut, not to stop it.
IRS isn't in the business of stopping transactions (unless it's money laundering) anyway
Agreed. Obviously, the tax code should be better enforced against wealthy people, but you can support one action without it meaning you don't support another.
And as long as they ACTUALLY do both, then it doesn't matter.
But they don't.
So it does.
On the other hand, if it's worth your time to scalp tickets then you aren't part of the upper class.
Edit: but I do agree, fuck scalpers
I'm not well-versed on the subject, but is ticket scalping not a large-scale business at this point? Like, yeah individual ticket holders can be opportunistic, but don't bots buy tickets by the thousands as soon as they go on sale?
Most of those "businesses" are run by just one person, or maybe a few friends. And how much money do you really think they could be making?
With that logic, we can say scalpers are class traitors, then!
Yeah, it's cheaper than the big fish and the GOP has continuously underfunded the IRS. Their whole 2024 strategy is to make it look like the extra IRS agents from the Inflation Reduction Act are going after small folks instead of the big fish. Without those agents, lawyers, and staff the rich will always win with bigger guns.
Is it actually cheaper than the big fish though? You could have four people devote a full year to a single multi millionaire and you'd probably still net more than their annual pay. Hell even if you just matched it it'd be worth.
The little fish can't afford a high priced lawyer. A big fish has several and can pay to keep the IRS busy fighting for years.
It is much cheaper. IIRC, the IRS went after Microsoft because they "sold" the Windows IP rights to a small CD/DVD printing factory in Mexico that MS used to print some installation discs, saving an absurd amount of money in taxes due to avoiding US taxes on the IP.
The IRS spent millions of dollars attempting to get MS to pay up. MS damaged the careers of the people in the government that gave the IRS the resources to go after MS, and cost the IRS an outrageous sum in legal fees.
Craziest part of it all: MS managed to get the laws the IRS was going after them on changed. Through political donations and lobbying, MS spent considerably more than the IRS was going after them for, to ensure the law was changed in MS's favor.
I'm probably getting a lot of details wrong but there are news articles about it you can look up. The IRS hasn't been given the resources to attempt any common sense obvious big wins since.
It's super easy to implement, comply, and enforce this. Like almost automated levels of easy. It's significantly more complex and requires tons of resources and expertise to go after the whales as you say. Resources they just don't have. Resources that might be wasted if/when it turns out the taxpayer is fully compliant within reason.
It's not about double standards, it's purely logistics and resources - at least on the IRS side. Congress is responsible for their funding, or lack thereof, and it doesn't take long to figure out who's responsible for the lack of it. So I'd encourage you to focus your ire on the response political party, not the IRS itself.
Right, well, anyway, the IRS budget just got a huge increase under the Biden administration new budget. They're finally hiring a ton of new agents and updating their ancient tech etc. The R party fought tooth and nail against this and there's an active smear campaign to make the average person afraid they're coming after you. R's managed to reduce the budget increase which is going to reduce the IRS ability to go after the whales, as you were griping about in your original post.
https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/irs-announces-sweeping-effort-to-restore-fairness-to-tax-system-with-inflation-reduction-act-funding-new-compliance-efforts
Believe me when I tell you a partnership with $10b assets is insane. Auditing that is extremely labor intensive and requires a ton of highly specialized skills and that all requires resources.
There's really nothing left to argue here so please just take this at face value and move on.
All that happened here is they lowered the reporting threshold to cast a wider net and force people to reported income they otherwise could have just not mentioned. It's not quite like flipping a switch but it's relatively easy to comply with, and relatively easy to enforce. "Fixing taxes" is significantly more complicated, to say the least.
The IRS doesn't care if you do crime or are exploitative or are morally bad
They just want their cut
Edit: grammar
The IRS will report a crime if they suspect one, but they don’t make the laws. You’re barking off the wrong tree if you think they should be the moral authority.
Edit2: grammar
You're saying that if they suspect someone of profiting off of let's say, human trafficking, they'd just ask for the taxes and not report the violation?
No, its still a crime to do a crime, but if you profit from your crime and dont report it, its now a double crime! All sarcasm asside, this is what the feds used to nab Al Capone. It also makes it easier for the feds to seize things that may or should have been owed. Remember, even the Joker pays his taxes.
Human trafficking is profoundly illegal, whereas scalping is not (in most states (all but 16)) so this makes your comment pretty silly. Not to mention the massive gap in how bad those two things are...
Human trafficking is most definitely "a crime" which is what some people think the IRS doesn't care about.
Yes I did say it's a crime... it is profoundly illegal... my exact words. According to the law, scalping is only "a crime" in 16 states. People can think whatever they want, I think it's stupid and should be illegal worldwide, but that doesn't matter. Gotta put your feelings aside when dealing with things like this, and jumping to extremes like you did is irrational and silly.
let's make the threshold $60 instead of $600
Do you even know what the IRS is doing here? If an individual makes more than 600 in profit on anything they have to report it and pay taxes. If you lower that to 60 that would just be incredibly annoying for the majority of people to deal with on a daily basis
$6
anything more than the gas to deliver a ticket is a scam
I have to report a $1 profit if that's what I got from selling market shares. $60 is way too generous.
I understand wanting to go after scalpers, but the $600 limit isn't specifically for ticket reselling websites - it includes transactions not categorized under "Friends and Family" on places like PayPal as well.
I use various cashback websites who pay out via PayPal and I'm starting to get close to the limit. As soon as I cross it, I either have to give PayPal my SSN or have 24% withheld by the IRS.
If a friend accidentally sends me money via "Goods and Services" instead of "Friends and Family" on PayPal and puts me over the threshold, I'm the one in trouble.
people who resold tickets bad, ticketmaster who fixes prices good! win-win situation ?
Law enforcement exists to protect the status quo. Corporation profit good. Individual profit bad.
maybe they could go after ticketmaster's near monopoly and constant breakage of agreements with gov. branches? just a thought
Why would the IRS be doing that
cause that would actually do good for the world
The IRS has zero jurisdiction to do that
Scalpers are predators, and captive markets like Ticketmaster give them a hunting ground.
By design. If it weren't easy for scalpers and bots to scoop tickets in the first seconds they're on sale, tours and venues wouldn't be assured their sales are met. Then bot resellers start the actual sale, where the scalpers come in...you, the attendee likely getting sloppy 4ths.
Wait, someone paid more than $600 for a fucking concert?
Yes and often times way more than that. I checked prices for a Tool concert at a venue near me a few weeks ago and the section closest to the stage had tickets reselling for thousands of dollars. Obligatory fuck Ticketmaster...
They could have sold multiple tickets
Ah good point, that makes more sense.
Well as per article yes, but 600$ is the reporting limit. If Ticketmaster, stubhub and so on has a reseller account with sales income of more than 600$ per year, they have to file it to IRS. Whether its single sale or thousands of separate small sales doesn't matter.
Completely normal tax procedure. Pretty much all big such platforms of various fields stock exchanges, commodity markets etc. have such obligation ledges on them for avoidance of tax evasion.
Nor as second note is anyone being "punished". Punishing is what happens on breaking law. This is business taxes, you make profits selling stuff, income taxes start applying. Normal cost of doing business in society for the services society provides (national military keeps the Mongol horde from wrecking your business and so on, transport atluthority builds roads to run business trucks on so the music tour entourage can get to the arena, so one can sell tickets to that conce for profit and son on).
Yeah this is completely normal and not at all anything to flip out about. Honestly I'm surprised the reporting threshold was ever $20k to begin with. The 1099 reporting threshold for contractors has been $600 for over a decade now so I would've assumed the same for scalpers.
This was me a couple years ago but apparently scalpers resell tickets for THOUSANDS. My SO managed to snag a few for their MSRP which is reasonable but they sell out instantly and apparently there's a market for them at those highly scalped prices. I don't agree with it but 🤷♂️
I'm not gonna say that should be illegal, but, like, a thousand dollars feeds my family for nearly a year.
How are you surviving off of a dollar a day for food? Genuinely curious
I get by for 2 people on $50 per week in NJ near NYC by:
Oh sure $25 seems doable without any major losses. But $1 a day for extended periods for an entire family sounds really hard to sustain. But given their reply it seems they have a lot of other food sources they are considering free which makes those numbers make more sense.
Totally agree meat can be a luxury item although there can be good sales at times. And cooking instead of eating out is a massive money saver!
I produce a lot of my own and mainly buy things like sugar and salt. When you live a low income/low cost lifestyle you kind of get sticker shock with how much people shell out for things.
If I had to guess..he's lying?
So you didn't like my reply about treating people with basic human decency, and this is how you behave? If this is a representative sample, I can see why you did time.
You must be really really bored. Try reading a book, or watching a cloud, or doing something productive with your life.
I mean, technically there's no new tax or anything here, they're just forcing companies to report the income so people can't get away with not paying their taxes on the profit. Now if only they'd enforce the tax laws on rich people, they'd easily make way more than this whole scheme will make by targeting a single billionaire.
Scalpers are absolutely the worst.
I pay my taxes and you should, too. I have no sympathy in general for people not reporting income from PayPal etc, but I'm struggling to think of a less sympathetic subgroup of tax frauds than ticket scalpers. They're not getting special treatment here, it's any 1099 income via the payment apps, but I really wish that wasn't the case. These crooks should be taxed out of business.
Punishment? Huh, didn't know the tax man doesn't want me to make money.
Do you even know what the IRS is doing here? They aren't punishing anyone. This is them literally making sure people pay the proper taxes on the profit.
Did... did you read the title?..
The article is stupid and doesn't know what they're talking about. Literally anyone who sells anything over $600 must report the sale to the IRS and pay taxes.
modern problems, modern solutions
Wtf! People actually pay top $ for this? Fucking stupid 9-5s !! Just my 2 cent: 9-5 aka regulars are really important for the economy , without them the economy will crash but also 9-5s are not important because paying them living wage or paying them more can actually shift the balance of power.
Bro what
Lol the concept is really deep.
No they won't unless you were selling in bulk.
Fuck the IRS, use monero. Or implement the single tax and disband the IRS. we all know that ~30+% of our money goes to taxes and that if you file incorrect you will go to jail. Just tax all purchases at 20% and be done with income tax, etc
Fuck scalpers, but I refuse to look at the $600 tax rule as anything other than a way for the government to squeeze money from and spy more on the common people.
Edit: to clarify I'm not rooting for the scalpers, I just don't want this governmental overreach to be put in a positive light just because its also affecting people we rightfully hate.
For those that don't know. The $600 tax rule is a requirement that Zelle, Venmo, etc must report transactions over $600 to the government so they can be taxed. Get a $600 graduation gift from grandma? Taxed. Get $1000 from your roommates to pay rent? You now have to document and show that so its not taxed. Sell a bike (that you ALREADY paid sales tax on using money you ALREADY paid income tax on) for $800, would you look at that its going on the tax form.
Why? Isn't the person selling the tickets for a $600 profit there one squeezing money from the common people?
If corporations paid the way they should the country would be in a lot less money issues than it is.
Here in the UK it's often talked about and people get angry about Bob the builder doing cash only work and not paying his taxes. Just another plan from the government and media to cause in fighting rather than look at the real issue, big corps.
But also fuck scalpers so I'm torn.
Speculative profits should be heavily taxed, it doesn't matter if it's done by old money that runs the big corporation or by middle class people that are as morally bankrupt. Scalpers and oligarchs are just two strains of the same virus.
Hard disagree. They'd just spend significantly more.
Yes? I'm against both of the parties in my comment. Maybe I made it sound like I'm in the scalpers side with my tax complaints, I'm not. I just don't want this government overreach to be placed in a positive light just because its also affecting people we hate.
Yeah I agree - as a small time gigging musician, fuck scalpers and also fuck government overreach here. Anything that hurts scalpers (in all fields, but tickets especially) is interesting to me and the average concert goer, but if it comes at the cost of broadly limiting the used music gear market, among thousands of other used equipment communities, it’s misdirected legislature at best.
The companies and systems that enable scalping and customer extortion such as Live Nation absolutely need to be limited and restricted, but setting a broad limit across all secondhand sales at $600 when it was previously $20,000 is an inaccurate miscorrection. More informed and nuanced legislature is necessary
To add a bit more context to this for the unaware: LiveNation is the umbrella Corp that owns TicketMaster as well as over 70% (IIRC) of the live music industry in the U.S. They're making a killing on tickets, alcohol sales, backend software licensing, and many different artist/event management firms. They also pay their employees the lowest wages relative to the rest of the live music industry, which was already a vastly underpaid industry before Live Nation came to power in the 2010's. Further, the CEO's salary increased by 1000% between 2019 and 2023 while the peasants got a meaningless raise from pre-inflation starvation wages to post-inflation starvation wages. They're the epitome of an exploitative monopoly, at every level.
Source: Current part time employee of LiveNation and 14 year veteran of the live music industry.
A list of their subsidiaries: https://investors.livenationentertainment.com/sec-filings/annual-reports/content/0001193125-08-043193/dex211.htm?TB_iframe=true&height=auto&width=auto&preload=false
It's not just transactions. $600 is the lower limit on taxable income. I used to do food delivery and if you make under $600 for the year it's not reported and not taxable. You're supposed to report any income over $600.
Already paid tax thing is not applicable, it's literally how taxation works. The government gets their share at each point. Everytime a taxable good changes hands, with exception, the tax is applied again.
I know that's how it works. I'm complaining because the way it works is bullshit.
Well taxation is completely necessary unless you have a steady stream of cash flowing into the government from another source, which almost no country has and no country will have indefinitely.
We can argue about rates and cut offs but taxation in general is not a bad system
Never said it was a bad system in general. But as a normal citizen not engaging in business I think paying taxes possibly 4 times (federal income tax, state income tax, sales tax when first bought new, sales tax when sold as used) on the same item is wrong.
You should not be paying tax unless you turned a profit on the sale.
You're right but, If you bought the bike years ago there's a strong chance you no longer have the receipt/invoice.
You won't need that unless you get audited, which is highly unlikely unless you're doing questionable things consistently, and even then they probably wouldn't care enough to look into a single bike sale too deeply.
I've been audited. It wasn't that difficult and I didn't need every last individual scrap of information
Taxation is bullshit when it causes your standard of living to be significantly lower than it would be without taxation. I could be living comfortably right now instead of scraping by if the government didn't have it's hand in my pocket at every turn. Tax the people who have money to spare.
And now that I've typed all that I actually read the last part you said about rates and cutoffs... I'm gonna leave this here anyway since typing it got some of the angry out of me.
I can assure you my job is not paying me extra to make up for taxes. They're not even keeping up with COL increases.
@lightnsfw
And yet, amazingly, you're blaming taxes and not your employer.
I was talking about general taxation, of course tax policy can impact people differently. That said your argument for taxation lowering your standard of living is a given, in that taxation is money from you meaning you have less to work with so it, by definition, would lead to less available funds for you. I agree with you though that taxation and welfare cliffs and taxation targets is disproportionately affecting to middle class.
Ideally government services I recieve from my tax dollars would outweigh the negative from what is coming out of my income. Personally I don't believe that to be the case. Maybe "Standard of Living" wasn't the right term to use, what I mean is if I got to keep the money that was going to taxes I would be able to buy a home, use my healthcare, and a little left over for hobbies and savings. If I had enough income that I could do all these things while still paying taxes I wouldn't bitch but instead I'm paycheck to paycheck with just about everything going to rent and other necessities and really not getting much in return from the government other than the roads and post office... Obviously there are programs the benefit other people more but I don't really think it's fair to expect my income bracket to foot the bill for those when I can't even achieve a decent life for myself.
Exactly and what you're saying is absolutely verifiably accurate so you're justified in what you are saying. I hope you vote in the correct direction to see these changes. Defending public services and cutting taxes for the rich does not benefit you.
Ideally you would have support to bridge the gap. Personally I'd aim to be in the position that I get less from the government than I provide, which is honestly a tall order when you factor in the inner workings of properly ran country.
If he's "just scraping by" he's not "middle class."
Scraping by could be just getting enough to eat or not being able to go on holidays. We don't know what it means for this guy.
I don't think there is much of an argument to be had here if you think the only role of taxes is to take money.
people would downvote u with no counter-argument to present. Lemmy is full of single digit iq NPCs
I think most of those people don't understand what the $600 rule is and instead thought I was saying scalpers shouldn't be taxed on their ill gotten profits.
Personally I think it fair enough that government tracks larger undocumented transactions, but maybe the 600 is a bit low a threshold not to affect common people too much.
I see your point, but I am from Northern Europe, and “governmental overreach” has a very different meaning to me than this. Especially the tracking side seems absolutely understandable for larger sums, but I am in favor of a heavy, regulating government, so I believe there are ways to make that threshold and rules as to who and why has to actually get taxed for the transaction, a fair enough and just construct among others very much needed.
multinationals should be banned from making subsidiaries in tax heavens (for exemple, Ireland) The Irs knows this but lobbying money prohibits them from achieving anything substiantial
so many people are uninformed and overly biaised