this post was submitted on 24 Sep 2023
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If you resold Taylor Swift Eras Tour tickets, the IRS is watching — A new rule from the IRS is punishing those who resold tickets for more than $600 in profit with a tax penalty::A new rule from the IRS is punishing those who resold tickets for more than $600 in profit with a tax penalty.

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[–] Holyhandgrenade@lemmy.world 121 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Somehow I doubt this will affect Ticketmaster, the biggest scalper of all

[–] jcit878@lemmy.world 50 points 1 year ago (1 children)

er, by default any profit is taxable for them while as a lemming you get a tax free $600 profit before it impacts you

but fuck ticketmaster anyway

[–] sndrtj@feddit.nl 38 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm pretty sure they pay effectively zero tax because they found some interesting ways to make their profit appear 0 on paper.

[–] eek2121@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago

I own a business and can agree with this statement.

[–] tenextrathrills@lemmynsfw.com 6 points 1 year ago

I don’t understand what your point is. Of course this doesn’t impact Ticketmaster. They already pay taxes on income generated from selling tickets, so nothing changes. I can’t tell if you’re just saying dumb shit to get upvotes from other idiots or truly don’t have a clue.

[–] Car@lemmy.dbzer0.com 85 points 1 year ago

Fuck scalpers

[–] Cyberflunk@lemmy.world 66 points 1 year ago (4 children)

But fuck fixing taxes to make billionaires and churches pay taxes.. eat the people as they say.

[–] hansl@lemmy.world 112 points 1 year ago (3 children)

If you resell tickets for 600$ in profit, you’re not “the people”, you’re a scalper and I have no sympathy for you. This is a good rule.

[–] LukeMedia@lemmy.world 27 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Agreed. Obviously, the tax code should be better enforced against wealthy people, but you can support one action without it meaning you don't support another.

[–] SARGEx117@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago

And as long as they ACTUALLY do both, then it doesn't matter.

But they don't.

So it does.

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[–] surewhynotlem@lemmy.world 27 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's just capitalists capitalizing. The IRS just wants a cut, not to stop it.

[–] Natanael@slrpnk.net 8 points 1 year ago

IRS isn't in the business of stopping transactions (unless it's money laundering) anyway

[–] Ajen@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

On the other hand, if it's worth your time to scalp tickets then you aren't part of the upper class.

Edit: but I do agree, fuck scalpers

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[–] somedaysoon@lemmy.world 29 points 1 year ago (2 children)

For real, most of the comments are about the scalpers but this is the only thing that stood out to me. The IRS has consistently shown they would rather net the little fish that can't fight back than take down the whales. Another example of being beyond the law in this country if you have money.

[–] archiotterpup@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah, it's cheaper than the big fish and the GOP has continuously underfunded the IRS. Their whole 2024 strategy is to make it look like the extra IRS agents from the Inflation Reduction Act are going after small folks instead of the big fish. Without those agents, lawyers, and staff the rich will always win with bigger guns.

[–] guacupado@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Is it actually cheaper than the big fish though? You could have four people devote a full year to a single multi millionaire and you'd probably still net more than their annual pay. Hell even if you just matched it it'd be worth.

[–] wagoner@infosec.pub 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

The little fish can't afford a high priced lawyer. A big fish has several and can pay to keep the IRS busy fighting for years.

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[–] solstice@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago (5 children)

It's super easy to implement, comply, and enforce this. Like almost automated levels of easy. It's significantly more complex and requires tons of resources and expertise to go after the whales as you say. Resources they just don't have. Resources that might be wasted if/when it turns out the taxpayer is fully compliant within reason.

It's not about double standards, it's purely logistics and resources - at least on the IRS side. Congress is responsible for their funding, or lack thereof, and it doesn't take long to figure out who's responsible for the lack of it. So I'd encourage you to focus your ire on the response political party, not the IRS itself.

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[–] solstice@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

All that happened here is they lowered the reporting threshold to cast a wider net and force people to reported income they otherwise could have just not mentioned. It's not quite like flipping a switch but it's relatively easy to comply with, and relatively easy to enforce. "Fixing taxes" is significantly more complicated, to say the least.

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[–] x4740N@lemmy.world 56 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (7 children)

The IRS doesn't care if you do crime or are exploitative or are morally bad

They just want their cut

Edit: grammar

[–] hansl@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago

The IRS will report a crime if they suspect one, but they don’t make the laws. You’re barking off the wrong tree if you think they should be the moral authority.

[–] Stumblinbear@pawb.social 4 points 1 year ago

Edit: grammer

Edit2: grammar

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[–] gibbedygook@sh.itjust.works 45 points 1 year ago (4 children)

let's make the threshold $60 instead of $600

[–] Stumblinbear@pawb.social 9 points 1 year ago

Do you even know what the IRS is doing here? If an individual makes more than 600 in profit on anything they have to report it and pay taxes. If you lower that to 60 that would just be incredibly annoying for the majority of people to deal with on a daily basis

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[–] RoseRose56@lemmy.world 41 points 1 year ago (1 children)

people who resold tickets bad, ticketmaster who fixes prices good! win-win situation ?

[–] Reddfugee42@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago

Law enforcement exists to protect the status quo. Corporation profit good. Individual profit bad.

[–] populustree@lemmy.blahaj.zone 27 points 1 year ago (3 children)

maybe they could go after ticketmaster's near monopoly and constant breakage of agreements with gov. branches? just a thought

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[–] iforgotmyinstance@lemmy.world 26 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Scalpers are predators, and captive markets like Ticketmaster give them a hunting ground.

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[–] kingludd@lemmy.basedcount.com 18 points 1 year ago (15 children)

Wait, someone paid more than $600 for a fucking concert?

[–] cryostars@lemmyf.uk 21 points 1 year ago

Yes and often times way more than that. I checked prices for a Tool concert at a venue near me a few weeks ago and the section closest to the stage had tickets reselling for thousands of dollars. Obligatory fuck Ticketmaster...

[–] Guest_User@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They could have sold multiple tickets

[–] kingludd@lemmy.basedcount.com 5 points 1 year ago

Ah good point, that makes more sense.

[–] variaatio@sopuli.xyz 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Well as per article yes, but 600$ is the reporting limit. If Ticketmaster, stubhub and so on has a reseller account with sales income of more than 600$ per year, they have to file it to IRS. Whether its single sale or thousands of separate small sales doesn't matter.

Completely normal tax procedure. Pretty much all big such platforms of various fields stock exchanges, commodity markets etc. have such obligation ledges on them for avoidance of tax evasion.

Nor as second note is anyone being "punished". Punishing is what happens on breaking law. This is business taxes, you make profits selling stuff, income taxes start applying. Normal cost of doing business in society for the services society provides (national military keeps the Mongol horde from wrecking your business and so on, transport atluthority builds roads to run business trucks on so the music tour entourage can get to the arena, so one can sell tickets to that conce for profit and son on).

[–] solstice@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

Yeah this is completely normal and not at all anything to flip out about. Honestly I'm surprised the reporting threshold was ever $20k to begin with. The 1099 reporting threshold for contractors has been $600 for over a decade now so I would've assumed the same for scalpers.

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[–] irotsoma@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago

I mean, technically there's no new tax or anything here, they're just forcing companies to report the income so people can't get away with not paying their taxes on the profit. Now if only they'd enforce the tax laws on rich people, they'd easily make way more than this whole scheme will make by targeting a single billionaire.

[–] rainynight65@feddit.de 7 points 1 year ago

Scalpers are absolutely the worst.

[–] tryharder@infosec.pub 6 points 1 year ago

I pay my taxes and you should, too. I have no sympathy in general for people not reporting income from PayPal etc, but I'm struggling to think of a less sympathetic subgroup of tax frauds than ticket scalpers. They're not getting special treatment here, it's any 1099 income via the payment apps, but I really wish that wasn't the case. These crooks should be taxed out of business.

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