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.
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
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.
@lightnsfw @Squizzy
You’re assuming your income would remain the same even if it wasn’t taxed.
That’s a poor assumption to make.
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.
My employer has no expectation to look out for my best interests. They’re trying to get as much work out of me for as little pay as possible and vice versa. If either of us could find a better deal tomorrow we’d drop the other one in a heartbeat. The government presumably should be working in my favor as that is what I’m voting/paying them for.
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.
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.
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.
I would rather pay higher taxes than cut services people need to survive. I don’t want to cut benefits to anyone (except maybe corporations getting subsidized). I just think the tax burden should be shifted to those that have the cash to spare.
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
@Squizzy @sudo22
Taxation is just a means for the Government to take money out of the system.
Given how our Federal Reserve bank functions (creating and destroying currency with ledger entries), I’m not convinced income tax is really a necessity.
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.
@Squizzy
Probably not if you don’t understand the roles of monetary and fiscal policy.
https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/100314/whats-difference-between-monetary-policy-and-fiscal-policy.asp
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