Reverb takes a lot...

[Northfall]

It's my understanding that Reverb refunds the difference of overpriced shipping to the customer. So if you charge $200 for shipping, and you get the discounted Reverb label for $80, theoretically you, the seller, should get the $120 difference added. But if I recall a few of my past transactions, I believe they only end up showing the actual shipping cost added to the payout. So going through Pirate Ship also allows you to cash out on those extra winnings as well.

 

[ZXIIIT]

This helps a lot, but even reverb tells you the breakdown of a sale.

Reverb Fee Calculator

Reverb Fee Calculator

www.roxxxtar.com

 

[Asdrael]

In other news, I got "scammed" out of 100€ a few months ago and after a few empty promises by the seller, I filed a complaint to the website and send him a message saying next stop was the cops (Europe in general keeps an eye on scams).

He just transferred me 100€ back instantly and sent me a screenshot to prove it. Will wait for tomorrow to see the money on my account but hey, small victory, bringing back my "scammed" count to 0 so far.

 

[spudmunkey]

Forgive me if anyone has mentioned this yet but Reverb overcharges for their shipping labels. Try PirateShip.

Have you tried Shippo? A couple of times I've checked a price, it was about the same as Shippo, and it's who I've been using for off-Etsy sales of stuff we normally sell on Etsy.

 

[jsmalleus]

The killer for me has been getting hit with a 1099 on used items I bought locally with cash over the years. Having to pay income tax on the sale amount & not even being able to deduct the original cost since there is no receipt usually means either setting the prices at levels that are inordinately higher than I'd like to account for it, or taking a whopping loss. Feel like used items should be exempt, especially since they're already getting sales tax several times when the gear changes hands.

 

[narad]

The killer for me has been getting hit with a 1099 on used items I bought locally with cash over the years. Having to pay income tax on the sale amount & not even being able to deduct the original cost since there is no receipt usually means either setting the prices at levels that are inordinately higher than I'd like to account for it, or taking a whopping loss. Feel like used items should be exempt, especially since they're already getting sales tax several times when the gear changes hands.

Yea, this is some seriously F'd piece of legislature. I normally don't think of any law that unfairly targetted me, but this one really sucks. You buy gear and sell at a loss, you take it the loss yourself. You sell gear at a profit (and with inflation and gear prices the past few years, everything is "profit" while functionally still feeling like a loss) and those previously losses don't even work against what you have to pay. Treating gear as like a one-time purchase or something, not the endless cycling that it is.

 

[crimson]

The killer for me has been getting hit with a 1099 on used items I bought locally with cash over the years. Having to pay income tax on the sale amount & not even being able to deduct the original cost since there is no receipt usually means either setting the prices at levels that are inordinately higher than I'd like to account for it, or taking a whopping loss. Feel like used items should be exempt, especially since they're already getting sales tax several times when the gear changes hands.

Government be like: Let's tax you indefinitely off of something that you bought with taxed income.

 

[Spaced Out Ace]

Glad I skipped out when Reverb wanted my SSN for tax reasons, because some government moron said, "obviously $600 a year is enough to live on." Fuck outta here.

 

[Randy]

The killer for me has been getting hit with a 1099 on used items I bought locally with cash over the years. Having to pay income tax on the sale amount & not even being able to deduct the original cost since there is no receipt usually means either setting the prices at levels that are inordinately higher than I'd like to account for it, or taking a whopping loss. Feel like used items should be exempt, especially since they're already getting sales tax several times when the gear changes hands.

Thankfully, as a small business owner I've paid someone to do my taxes for the last 20 years. It's more expensive than filing your own taxes but they've got a ton of loopholes and things they can do to document those costs without necessarily having receipts for everything.

Online e-filing and things like that don't make it easy to explain anything without full documentation. It's totally unfair.

Government be like: Let's tax you indefinitely off of something that you bought with taxed income.

I don't particularly have an issue with sales tax on transactions, since the government is essentially saying it's for the transaction itself not necessarily the goods. It's also a pretty small number.

I have a very big problem with taxing it as income, at 100 cents on the dollar for your sale price if you don't document what you paid for it. Now, it's notable that the law does say the income is supposed to only be taxed for the difference between what you paid and what you sold it for. Which for most people, would end up dropping the income below the threshold where you would have to pay.

But as stated above, they make it too hard for the average person selling some stuff on reverb to claim the difference. It's actually a fatal flaw in the legislation, because obviously if you are selling a finished guitar, you did not get it for free so you are not making a 100% profit. Ever.

One of my businesses is building guitars or also repairing and reselling guitars. For me, it's easy and common documentation that the products I sell cost me something to create. Again, it's unfair that you'd open the average person selling their used stuff up to the same tax burden as a guy like me who does it for a living but not give them the same opportunity or tools to write it off.

Glad I skipped out when Reverb wanted my SSN for tax reasons, because some government moron said, "obviously $600 a year is enough to live on." Fuck outta here.

This was in the news recently, and I believe there's a chance the threshold will be raised back to $20,000 or at least $10,000.

The head of the IRS is on record saying the low $600 threshold has made it almost unenforceable because they don't have enough manpower to process that many transactions on that many people. You are talking about an extra multiples of hundreds of millions of people, most with multiple transactions and also the documentation of the original purchases that IRS agents are supposed to track. It's impossible.

 

[jaxadam]

In order to mitigate shipping costs, I will personally hand deliver any guitar I sell. It will be the guitar, me, a few Monsters, and directions to the nearest Gentlemen’s club.

"obviously $600 a year is enough to live on." Fuck outta here.

I could live on $600k a year, but it'd be roughing it.

 

[Spaced Out Ace]

In order to mitigate shipping costs, I will personally hand deliver any guitar I sell. It will be the guitar, me, a few Monsters, and directions to the nearest Gentlemen’s club.



I could live on $600k a year, but it'd be roughing it.

You poor thing. Bless your heart as Texans say. Lol

 

[Hollowway]

I could live on $600k a year, but it'd be roughing it.

Well then you're not really Kevin Costner wife material, then, are you?! You'd need to have about twice that to survive, if you were.

 

[narad]

Thankfully, as a small business owner I've paid someone to do my taxes for the last 20 years. It's more expensive than filing your own taxes but they've got a ton of loopholes and things they can do to document those costs without necessarily having receipts for everything.

Online e-filing and things like that don't make it easy to explain anything without full documentation. It's totally unfair.



I don't particularly have an issue with sales tax on transactions, since the government is essentially saying it's for the transaction itself not necessarily the goods. It's also a pretty small number.

I have a very big problem with taxing it as income, at 100 cents on the dollar for your sale price if you don't document what you paid for it. Now, it's notable that the law does say the income is supposed to only be taxed for the difference between what you paid and what you sold it for. Which for most people, would end up dropping the income below the threshold where you would have to pay.

But as stated above, they make it too hard for the average person selling some stuff on reverb to claim the difference. It's actually a fatal flaw in the legislation, because obviously if you are selling a finished guitar, you did not get it for free so you are not making a 100% profit. Ever.

One of my businesses is building guitars or also repairing and reselling guitars. For me, it's easy and common documentation that the products I sell cost me something to create. Again, it's unfair that you'd open the average person selling their used stuff up to the same tax burden as a guy like me who does it for a living but not give them the same opportunity or tools to write it off.



This was in the news recently, and I believe there's a chance the threshold will be raised back to $20,000 or at least $10,000.

The head of the IRS is on record saying the low $600 threshold has made it almost unenforceable because they don't have enough manpower to process that many transactions on that many people. You are talking about an extra multiples of hundreds of millions of people, most with multiple transactions and also the documentation of the original purchases that IRS agents are supposed to track. It's impossible.

For me they want notorized translations of the original Japanese receipts included in the fillings. Can fuck right off thinking in going to pay thousands of dollars just in official translation costs. Hire some Japanese speaking IRS agents.

 

[c7spheres]

For me they want notorized translations of the original Japanese receipts included in the fillings. Can fuck right off thinking in going to pay thousands of dollars just in official translation costs. Hire some Japanese speaking IRS agents.

Makes me wonder if not filing and roling dice would be better for this. If they don't get around to it you win, if they do and force payment it still might be cheaper than translation costs and hassels, if it's not then they can just do a payment plan and you can milk it out to them over years with a super low hassel payment. lol. - I got audited twice by the IRS when iI was making only $22k a year because I was off by $2k on my income. I put $20k instead of $22k. That $30 worth of taxes I owed came back in teh form of 2 audits about 5 years later. I never heard anythign about it until I got the bill andit was like $350 or something on $30 of taxes, retroactive with penaltys an d2 audits. I had to do all kinds or paper work and letters and stuff. Then another audit just because that turned out ok. They're evil and it's not justified imo. lol.

 

[EVH-5150]

Thankfully, as a small business owner I've paid someone to do my taxes for the last 20 years. It's more expensive than filing your own taxes but they've got a ton of loopholes and things they can do to document those costs without necessarily having receipts for everything.

Online e-filing and things like that don't make it easy to explain anything without full documentation. It's totally unfair.



I don't particularly have an issue with sales tax on transactions, since the government is essentially saying it's for the transaction itself not necessarily the goods. It's also a pretty small number.

I have a very big problem with taxing it as income, at 100 cents on the dollar for your sale price if you don't document what you paid for it. Now, it's notable that the law does say the income is supposed to only be taxed for the difference between what you paid and what you sold it for. Which for most people, would end up dropping the income below the threshold where you would have to pay.

But as stated above, they make it too hard for the average person selling some stuff on reverb to claim the difference. It's actually a fatal flaw in the legislation, because obviously if you are selling a finished guitar, you did not get it for free so you are not making a 100% profit. Ever.

One of my businesses is building guitars or also repairing and reselling guitars. For me, it's easy and common documentation that the products I sell cost me something to create. Again, it's unfair that you'd open the average person selling their used stuff up to the same tax burden as a guy like me who does it for a living but not give them the same opportunity or tools to write it off.



This was in the news recently, and I believe there's a chance the threshold will be raised back to $20,000 or at least $10,000.

The head of the IRS is on record saying the low $600 threshold has made it almost unenforceable because they don't have enough manpower to process that many transactions on that many people. You are talking about an extra multiples of hundreds of millions of people, most with multiple transactions and also the documentation of the original purchases that IRS agents are supposed to track. It's impossible.

I know that eBay and Reverb are feeling the pinch from these new tax laws as well. I'm sure most of you including myself have been sent emails from both sites asking us to fill out and send the pre-written letters to our state legislatures asking them to repeal this stupid tax law! Yeah...no kidding! We know those sites have probably seen a huge volume drop in sales because people like us no longer want to deal with the new tax burden either. I haven't sold anything in 2 years, which is sad because it used to be my go-to method for clearing out gear to make room for more gear! I'm just waiting and hoping the threshold is put back to a more sensible level, like $20K.

 

[Andromalia]

So you're telling me I should keep all my gear?

Unless you move to Europe, no problem.

 

[zamboknee]

Sweetwater's Gear Exchange isn't as costly, if I remember correctly.

 

[crimson]

Sweetwater's Gear Exchange isn't as costly, if I remember correctly.

It looks like it's only if you use their giftcard as a payout option, then it's free. Otherwise it's 5% seller's fee + 2.5% transaction fee. Roughly reverb. I think what I will be doing to compensate is just marking my items 7.5% up.

 

[crimson]

It's my understanding that Reverb refunds the difference of overpriced shipping to the customer. So if you charge $200 for shipping, and you get the discounted Reverb label for $80, theoretically you, the seller, should get the $120 difference added. But if I recall a few of my past transactions, I believe they only end up showing the actual shipping cost added to the payout. So going through Pirate Ship also allows you to cash out on those extra winnings as well.

that's fucking stupid fuck reverb i'm going to include free shipping and + $300 all my items

 

[c7spheres]

It looks like it's only if you use their giftcard as a payout option, then it's free. Otherwise it's 5% seller's fee + 2.5% transaction fee. Roughly reverb. I think what I will be doing to compensate is just marking my items 7.5% up.

I think it's not just 7.5% though. You have to think it's off the total each time if I remember right. I don't know if they still to but Ebay was taking the fees off the total amount plus shipping, then Paypal would do it again then fees again to transfer to bank then again for for the gob't what you're supposed to pay in taxes on etc. Basically they want you to give your item away and take all the risk and responsibiliyt etc. I'll continue avoiding them at all costs. It's total usury.