[ARC5] IRS Goes After Ebayers- Hamfest Leverage??

[WA5CAB at cs.com]

I can answer that one.  The answer is "NO".  In the first place, you didn't 
buy it in '67 and pay the government's price.  But even if you had, the rules 
on inventory cost don't allow adjusting cost after the fact for inflation.  If 
today I sell one ot the TCS transmitters I bought from Baranoski, all that I 
can claim is what I paid for it in 1994.  The cost of keeping it in inventory, 
such as storage building rental, cost of shelving (one time), etc., is 
generally deductible though.

However, 99% of you needn't worry about it.  Only a handful of us here make 
any part of our living selling things over and above what we bought for our own 
use and later decided to trade/sell off.  There are a lot of eBay sellers who 
do as well, and apparently a significant percentage of them don't report the 
income.  Those are the ones that the IRS wants to go after.

In a message dated 2/25/2007 5:39:59 PM Central Standard Time, 
jcoward5452 at aol.com writes: 
> If I inflate the government's cost of my '67 EAC R-390A to today's 
> dollars and sell the radio for say $500 do I then get to claim the loss?
> Jay
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: neilba at clear.net.nz
> To: ARC5 at mailman.qth.net
> Sent: Sun, 25 Feb 2007 3:24 PM
> Subject: Re: [ARC5] IRS Goes After Ebayers- Hamfest Leverage??
> 
> >The IRS has made it clear they are going after Ebay people >who don't 
> report the profit on their sales as income. 
> >They are pressuring Ebay to release seller information, 
> 

Robert Downs - Houston
<http://www.wa5cab.com> (Web Store)
MVPA 9480
<wa5cab at cs.com> (Primary email)
<wa5cab at houston.rr.com> (Backup email)