You can't have it both ways. You want to deduct expenses and you have purchases that you turned around and resold. At the same time, you say, "his isn’t like an established business I’m living off of".
1) One possibility is that this is a business. You enter your income on Schedule C and take your expenses. You will not have a basis for the "old clothes and stuff I had around the house".
2) This is other income. You had no profit motive and you can't take any expenses.
3) It is a little of each. Some things you purchased things for resale. You have receipts that you can include as purchases and include as an expense. You do not need to keep an inventory unless this turns into a business. You can also take the E-bay fees and shipping costs for those items only. Enter that portion of the income on Schedule C.
The things you had laying about the house are other income and you can zero that amount of income since you purchased the items a long time ago and sold them for less than your paid.
You will need to make sure that the income on Schedule C and the other income together add up to the amount on the 1099.
Other Income
This can be reported as the sale of items not associated with a business so this won't be considered as self-employment income
In order to do that you can either report it as investment income or other miscellaneous income. Make sure to include expenses of the sales and the original cost of the items.
For reporting Form 1009-K for personal items sold not associated with a trade or business, you can report this as Miscellaneous income.
- From the left menu, go to Federal and select the first tab, Wages & Income
- Add more income by scrolling down to the last option, Less Common Income, and Show more
- Scroll down to the last option, Miscellaneous Income, 1099-A, 1099-C and Start
- Choose the last option, Other reportable income and Start and Yes
- Enter the applicable description and amount and Continue
- First, enter Form 1099-K as received. It is essential that the full amount be entered.
- Next, enter an adjustment as a negative number to reflect the cost of these items and the sales expenses (but not more than the sales price. You can't produce a loss.)
Another option Is to report it on Schedule D as the sale of a personal item. Since you can't deduct a personal use loss, you are covered.
