I did not receive a 1099 k,I sold 60 personal items from my garage on eBay and had. $395 profit on sales of $4000 . How should I report this profit ?

[billc199]

Would I have to record all sales individually or as a total ?

[AliciaP1]

You can report the sales as a total.

To enter your personal items sales in TurboTax Online you can follow these steps:

1. Within your return, use the magnifying glass icon to search for 1099-K and select the Jump to link at the top of the search results
2. When you get to the Choose which type of income your 1099-K is for screen select Personal item sales and Continue
3. Enter the information from your 1099-K
4. Click Done
5. Go back to the Wages & Income screen and click Edit for Investments and Savings (1099-B, 1099-INT, 1099-DIV, 1099-K, Crypto)
6. Click Review for the 1099-K you entered and here you can enter the expenses and details for the items you sold
7. Proceed entering/reviewing your return.

[billc199]

Thanks but I stated I didn't receive a 1099k Did Not.

[PattiF]

You can enter the information about your sales without a 1099-K.  

In your return, go to Investment Income

• Choose Stocks, Mutual Funds, Bonds, Other and start
• Answer Yes that you sold investments for the year
• Answer No to the 1099-B question
• Choose the investment type, everything else
• Description  - Personal items
• Sales Proceeds -
• Date Sold- Use the last sale date
• Date Purchased - Use a date at least a year earlier than the sale date
• Tell us how you acquired the property, purchase
• Enter your cost of the items

@billc199 

[jtax]

When you say profit do you mean ebay proceeds - fees - postage - original cost of the items?

I don't think you can lump them all together. Person items sold at a loss are not deductible per I.R.C.  165(c). So if you sell 50 items and 30 of them are at a loss of say  a total of $500, but 20 are a gain of  a total $800, you cannot subtract the $500 from the gain items. You have $800 of gain not $300.

I might lump together all of the items sold at a gain for simplicity but I would not use any of the losses to offset any gain.

Note capital (investment) assets as defined in I.R.C. 1221 are treated differently.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/165

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/1221

[billc199]

Thanks for the response .Ebay provides a detailed sales report for the year .It shows total and net proceeds minus fees,taxes,shipping labels. I have to enter the cost .  So my profit is a total of all gains and losses not just gains. I'm talking $20 or so in most cases. So should I just pull out the gains ?

Thanks Bill

[jtax]

Yes, I think you should report income of the gain on all items sold as a gain and ignore losses.  For personal use items. Items used in business or bought as an investment would likely be different.

For a personal item your "basis" for figuring out your gain is your cost for the item. [gain = proceeds - expenses of sale - basis). (Assuming no improvements to the item, which seems unlikely).

I don't think most people would have any idea what the cost of most personal items bought perhaps years ago were. (E.g. old clothing or tools or or a video or cd or whatever). Almost always they sell at a loss unless they are rare and valuable. But you know best.

[billc199]

Thanks Patti ,that's what I did .I had some other advice about just entering gains for personal items. There is only a few hundred dollar difference between just gains and net of gains and losses. I just cleared out my garage of golf clubs ,tools and some car parts. It's by far not a business.

Thanks Bill

[KrisD15]

Just remember, when it comes to selling PERSONAL ITEMS as an individual (not as a business) you cannot offset gain with loss. 

Only gain is taxable. 

Loss is not reported. 

If you are not filing as a business, you report the sales you made a profit on, not just the profit on ALL the sales combined. 

[billc199]

Should that go on schedule D with other gains or in other income.

[DaveF1006]

It can either go on a Schedule D or reported as other income. Schedule D is preferable because you can offset the income amounts with the cost basis of the items that were sold and this is considered a cleaner copy than reporting it as other income.

Also it offers an advantage in that if you own these personal items for more than one year, the income is taxed at a long term capital gains rate rather than an ordinary income rate.  

The downside to this reporting is that it takes much more work to prepare. When you report as i describe below, you may summarize the sales in the investment and savings section and e file the return but you will need to send a detailed summary sheet to the IRS after the return is e-filed.  Turbo Tax will instruct how to prepare and mail form 8453 along with the detailed summary report.

Here is how to report this.

1. Select Federal.
2. Select Wages & Income.
3. Click Show more to the right of Other Common Income.
4. Under Your income and expenses, click the Edit/Add button to the right of Form 1099-K.
5. At the screen Did you get a 1099-K? click Yes.
6. At the screen How would you like to enter your 1099-K? click Type it in myself.  Click Continue.
7. At the screen Choose which type of income your 1099-K is for, select the button for Personal item sales.  Click Continue.
8. At the screen Let’s get the info from your 1099-K, enter the information. Click Continue.
9. At the screen Personal Item Sales, you are told that further information will need to be entered.  Learn More provides detailed information for the next steps.  Click Continue.
10. At the screen Your 1099-K summary, notice that the income relates to ‘Sale of Personal Items’.  Click Done.
11. Under Your income and expenses, click the Edit/Add button to the right of Investments and Savings (1099-B, 1099-K….)
12. if the screen asks you if you would rather do a summary total or one at a time you can decide which to use. If you have a large number of transactions, you may wish to do a summary total and then mail the summary detail to the IRS..
13. At this screen, you will be asked to Review the Personal item sales (1099-K).
14. Continue entering these transactions.

If you do not have a large number of items to report, you may wish to enter these one at a time to avoid mailing in a detailed summary report to the IRS.