A United States IRS advisory committee recommended the IRS require Internet business sites to get tax identification numbers from all sellers, according to USA Today.
It appears this non-governmental panel wants to put the burden on sites like eBay, requiring them to collect tax ID numbers and report sellers’ income to the IRS.
Blame eBay in part for IRS scrutiny - the committee was impressed with the auction site’s 2005 survey that showed more than 724,000 Americans described the top online auction site as their primary or secondary source of income.
The online-auction tax matter raises some interesting issues. Do eBay and other online auction sites have good reporting capability? And can sellers be sure eBay is reporting the correct numbers to the IRS?
Because eBay is “a venue only,” how do they know that the seller actually received payment from buyers? (They do know if the seller filed non-paying bidders (UPI) reports on transactions.)
Tim R on February 25th, 2007 at 6:53 pm
There are quite a few ebay sellers not reporting their profit to the IRS. Get them Uncle Same :)