IRS wants eBay to turn on its customers

Not ONE dime of federal income tax goes to the
government. Watch the documentary called "Freedom
to facism."

I think this idea is great.I am tired of paying all my taxes and then watching "CASH"people getting away with not paying thiers.I don"t like the idea of Bank America giving credit cards to illegals without SS numbers.I think all monies transmitted outside the country to other countries should require a SS number or be subject to 20% withholding refundable if it is shown tax returnswere filed.So why not all of us getting behind "OUR"and demanding that E Bay comply.
PS I don't have problems with illegals who file returns,pay thier taxes and obey the law

This won't work. If this succeds then all of those 'power sellers' will find another auction site for them to sell their stuff through. This will only hurt eBay, no wonder they are fighting it.

if the irs wants information ....go on e-bay and monitor the site for big sellers ..don't involve E-BAY..the gambling business' screwed up by allowing the irs to log and document winner's.....to bad IRS go to the casino's and watch first hand .....mr. looser take it on the chin and shut up...next time u might be a winner

Many items sold through eBay are used. Does this mean live auction estate sales will also be taxed as well?

OH OH OH!!!

So eBay is protecting the interests of it's largest sellers against IRS intrusion???

What happened to "We're just a venue" Meg?

Consider also the fact that this November the current status of Internet sales tax is back up for review. Can you say Internet retail audit? I thought you could.

I've said it before, someone had better step into the gap and inform the fifty states that they are going to take the lead in Internet tax collection and that they will create and administer a fair and workable program to the betterment of the Internet as a whole and then negotiate to make it happen. A gigantic opportunity is right before us with this, unless of course we all sit mute while the government F's it up.

The other option is for each individual state to initiate it's own Internet retail taxation program and if that happens, we may as well shut the whole thing down.

Anyone who thinks the taxing authorities will continue to let the Internet skate on this issue needs to wake up and smell the revenue.

It would be interesting to watch how this battle unfolds as we have interests from traditional brick and mortar retailers who likely supports the IRS move against online auctioners on eBay who have managed to maintain price advantage.

http://www.myauctionfeedback.com/blindauctions/

As an eBay seller, I would guarantee that we won't let this nonsense go without a fight.

http://www.squidoo.com/ceilingfanbayebay

Maybe it's more politically correct to formally request the data from eBay, but eBay's refusal doesn't necessarily mean the feds aren't harvesting information right off the web.

I'd be surprised if the IRS isn't using a variation of the xenon spider to track eBay transactions, the way other government tax agencies do.


From wired.com:
"Websites around the world are getting a new computerized visitor among the Googlebots and Yahoo web spiders: The taxman. A five-nation tax enforcement cartel has been quietly cracking down on suspected internet tax cheats, using a sophisticated web crawling program to monitor transactions on auction sites, and track operators of online shops, poker and porn sites.

The "Xenon" program -- a reference to the super-bright auto headlights that light up dark places -- was started in The Netherlands in 2004 by the Dutch equivalent of the IRS, Belastingdienst. It has since been expanded and enhanced by international group of tax authorities in Austria, Denmark, Britain and Canada, with the assistance of Amsterdam-based data mining firm Sentient Machine Research.

Xenon is primarily a spider: a program that downloads a web page, then traverses its links and downloads those as well, ad infinitum. In this manner spiders can create huge datasets of web material, while preserving the relationships between pages at the moment they were spidered -- something that can reveal a lot about the people that made the pages.

It's unclear how effective Xenon has been in generating investigative leads. Contacted by Wired News, the tax departments of Canada and the United Kingdom confirmed participation in the program, but declined further comment.

[snip]

In the United States, the IRS is not a part of the Xenon project, but would neither confirm nor deny that it uses spidering software in its investigations."

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/security/1,72564-0.html

And if it does, what a nightmare for any eBay seller whose account was hijacked and used to sell phantom high-end merchandise!

If this goes through, and eBay is forced to turn over the numbers, it will be very very very bad for eBay. There are a lot of sellers out there who claim their income from eBay, but not the majority.

Why do you think so many people sell on ebay?

This is trully ridiculous!!!! Can the government ever stay out of anything? Shopping on Ebay is fun and government involvement would change that immensely. My suggestion to bringing down the deficit would be go after the richest who are getting unfair tax breaks, paycuts of our elected officials & freeze their "self approved" raises and make earmarks (pet projects) history!!!!!

This is completely ridiculous!!! I hate paying my taxes as much as the next man, but come on IRS do you have to mingle in everything? next you will be taxing us for using "your air" to fart in, this is outrageous!!!!

So, the IRS cashcow wants more revenue to send abroad. The government needs to stop "forgiving" the debts of other countries (in the billions of $)-this undoubtedly will "slim down" the national debt. The government certainly don't forgive any student loan debts here in the USA, extend medical benefits to all Americans, clean up and assist in disaster areas such Katrina, Pacific coast wildfires, flooding victims in NY, PA, tornado victims in FL, ice storms in the Nation's heartlands, insuffient border security, etc. etc. The government says our economy is good now - perhaps Ebay has helped Americans here. Will the IRS begine cracking down on classified selling ads, garage sales, flea markets, contents of house sales, informal estate sales, tag sales? Americans are taxed on gasoline, heating oil, electricity, gas utilities, telephone service, paper products (such as toilet paper, water utilities, cable, etc. etc. - these are not luxuries, instead necessities. Just what Americans need - to be squeezed for more tax.

The problem is that a sale on ebay may not be profitable. If a seller loses money, I guess he would have a tax deduction that is not getting reported now. Also many of the bids, especially power sellers, are fake bids. It is so obvious when they sell a valuable item for one dollar to a bidder with 0 feedback and the item is back up for bid the next day. That is rampant on ebay. So will they have to come clean with Ebay or the IRS? With 5 million items on ebay everyday, how many IRS agents will be assigned to Ebay? The biggest tax scam now is earned income credit. Nobody gets caught on that one and it costs the government billions of fraudulent dollars a year.

Personally I am all in favor of this procedure. Why should those of us who pay our share of taxes subsidize those who circumvent the system by not reporting their income due to cash sales.

This is riddiculous!!! The whole point of ebay is to save money and make money! Sellers are going to have to raise their prices to collect a profit and by the time you factor in the shipping, you mine as well buy whatever your bidding on from a store unless its one of a kind. Its not fair to buyer's like me who live in county's that have no sales tax on clothing purchases. Is it wrong for me to try to save money on clothes? It wont be possible to buy for less if sellers raise their prices to make a profit!

i do not think we should pay taxes,for the items we sell on eBay. because that is our right & pleasure.just like the other auctions places.that is our past time. part of our life style.connie.

If you are running a business off of e-Bay, you should pay taxes, BOTTOM LINE...why should anyone get out of paying taxes simply bc their business is via the internet as opposed to being run out of a building? However, if you are making simple transactions that equate to less than say $10,000/year or so (that figure could be determined at a later time), the IRS should focus on its bigger issues...

Good Ol’ IRS an institution not unlike the Mafia. In fact I would rather deal w/ the mafia then these slime balls. Realize this: every time the IRS institutes a new tax it never goes away. We still pay taxes for wars from the 1800’s, so in the year 2050 when eBay has been replaced we will still pay taxes on that. What the IRS really does is cripple the American worker and spirit! It should be illegal for them to exist!