Many people down-size, buy to sell, just buy too much over the years, declutter, or sell their dead parents' belongings. Persons holding yard sales, garage sales, tag sales, church rummage sales may all be breaking the law soon.
If this law is upheld, you may not be able to resell your grandmother's antiques or a CD you bought earlier without suffering the fate of a "law-breaker," your new designation. Will we all be fined or jailed? How will flea markets, antique stores, used furniture stores fare?
This law not only affects the seller of used items, it also affects those of us who would like to save a buck and buy used items.
Will used items be the new black market? Will Saturday raids round up the sellers in their own front yards?
Your turn
As for me, I will continue to sell as I please. How about you? Have you heard anything about this law?
A few years ago here in Canada the gov. tried to make people having yard sales collect taxes for them on all their yard sale items. Hahaha! That went over like a lead ballon as you can imagine.
ReplyDeleteDoes your law say anything about bartering for used items?
The city and county makes people get a $5 permit which, of course, would allow officials to go get the tax or know from whom to collect. But, no, no govt has tried to extract taxes, yet.
ReplyDeleteYes, the law is that barter must be taxed. However, if I trade a dozen eggs for a $2 chair, which I did, no one wants the hassle of finding me and collecting taxes. If a orthodontist traded braces on a child for a new fence, then taxes would be in order and expected. Some people do pay taxes on large barters. I imagine that other barters of substantial amounts are not turned in to authorities.
Good question~~~
Yes, I heard that this is being inserted into another law which is about to come up for review within the Supreme Court. My faith in that group has diminished considerably since they upheld Obamacare. I still don't see how forcing me or any American to buy ANYTHING, insurance or otherwise, could be Constitutional. I think a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court should be reconsidered.
ReplyDeleteMaybe there will be a line-item veto for some things. We will all feel like bootleggers, selling secretly.
DeleteI am not happy with Obama's plans. However, Mitt Romney's plan is scary.
Supreme Court? I seem to be happy with them most of the time. However, things do change with the times.
How can anyone think that that is a good idea or even fair...I hope it doesn't happen but there are some pretty stupid laws out there.
ReplyDeleteBarb.
Stupid people? I do wonder who is behind this.
DeleteLet me give you the sane answer (and no, I don't expect sanity from my government): if this guy made $1.2 million buying books in Thailand and selling them in the US, he was clearly, by the IRS definition, running a business. (I sure hope for his sake he payed taxes on that.) Since he was buying stuff to resell from overseas, he was clearly in the import business (with a whole nother set of regulations to follow). Since (after the first few items) he was buying things to resell and not for personal use, he was no longer covered by the first sale doctrine and thus had to get permission from the copyright holders.
ReplyDeleteI would have no real problem with that rule, because that would leave most people alone.
John,
ReplyDeleteThe problem is that his actions unleashed a plethora of rules that could affect all of us. Yes, he was a business even if he was just making a bit of money at first. I am quite sure he did not think through the rules he had to follow.
While I do not like taxes I understand the basic purpose & pay what is required. However, taxes for yardsales or resale of used clothing & household items? No way! Taxes were paid when they were originaly purchased. Processing the paperwork and following up by the government would cost more than they would make...but, I could see obama doing just that
ReplyDelete