Self employed

Hi Vtecsidelsol,

  This is a classic inventory issue that has been solved in a couple of different ways that the IRS approves.  In this case, specific identification on each book seems to be the ideal inventory method.  If you are in a business where you buy and sell comic books, it is to your advantage to use some kind of tracking system.  That will allow you to know how much you pay on each item and can know how much to sell it for.  

  This comes back to your question on the receipts being a lump sum.   When you buy 10 books and get a $600 receipt, your inventory system should identify the date you bought it, the price paid, and the title of the book.  I suggest a column that tracks which receipt.  You can always dig this out be looking up each receipt by date.  This depends on your volume.  You may have other information that you want to keep like which store purchased or condition.   Yes, this means 10 inventory entries for that one lump purchase.  The level of detail will insure that you are making a profit.  Having a good tracking system will make you successful in your venture.  You will have to recreate the detail that went into the $600 receipt.  That is the only way to make sure that you have the values correct.  They must total $600.  Maybe keeping a copy of this detail with each of the 10 books would help you for a tracking system.  If you like books, I bet paper is more fun that computers.

  Another way to decide cost would be averaging the 10 that cost $600 or $60 each.  That method would be slightly easier but I think you would lose valuation since comic books are so unique.

  I'm including a link that shows how to enter the inventory into TurboTax.

https://ttlc.intuit.com/community/taxes/discussion/total-cost-of-inventory-purchased-where-should-i-...

  I hope that your comic book business grows and grows,

thanks for asking,

  Louise