@FHH11 wrote:
I am 84 years old and am selling my life's accumulation of stuff, mostly electronic or sailboat equipment made in the 1930s,40s, 50s, 60s and 70s and associated with my ham radio and sailing hobbies.. I have no records of actual purchase dates or amounts for much of this stuff. All told, this stuff is being sold at a loss, and in some cases at a great loss. I had no intent to be a business do not expect any profits, only losses. Nor did I want to throw the stuff in a landfill. Nor did I intend to have to buy a Turbo-tax upgrade to get a Schedule C. Can I avoid Schedule C by showing the income as Miscellaneous Income, attaching the Schedule K and including a reasonable explanation that I am not in a business and that the Ebay sales were sold at a loss?
If you are only selling items for less than you paid, you don't have any taxable income to report. However, the IRS may take the information from the 1099-Kk and start to ask you questions to prove that all the items were sold for less than the purchase price
If you are not in an "ongoing trade or business" with an intent to make a profit, then you are not self-employed. It sound like you will be running an eBay business for many months or a couple of years to sell off all the things you want to sell off, whether that would be an "ongoing trade or business" would ultimately depend on the views of the IRS auditor if you are audited. https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/business-activities
You probably have two options at this point. You could simply claim that everything is being sold below your original cost, the income is not taxable, and not report any of it. When you receive a 1099-K that is not income, the IRS asks you to file by mail and attach a written statement explaining why the money is not taxable, and a copy of the 1099-K. They may come to you later asking for more proof.
Or, you could acknowledge that you have no proof of original cost, which would make all the money taxable, but that you do not have an "ongoing trade or business" carried out in good faith with a profit motive, so the income is "other non-wage income" instead of schedule C income.
It will behoove you in any case, and especially in option 1, for you to keep accurate and detailed records of all the items you sell, and as much as you can reasonably remember about how you acquired it (bought new, bought used, received as gift, and the approximate year at least.).
