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.
Somehow I doubt this will affect Ticketmaster, the biggest scalper of all
er, by default any profit is taxable for them while as a lemming you get a tax free $600 profit before it impacts you
but fuck ticketmaster anyway
I’m pretty sure they pay effectively zero tax because they found some interesting ways to make their profit appear 0 on paper.
I own a business and can agree with this statement.
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But fuck fixing taxes to make billionaires and churches pay taxes… eat the people as they say.
If you resell tickets for 600$ in profit, you’re not “the people”, you’re a scalper and I have no sympathy for you. This is a good rule.
That’s just capitalists capitalizing. The IRS just wants a cut, not to stop it.
IRS isn’t in the business of stopping transactions (unless it’s money laundering) anyway
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.
And as long as they ACTUALLY do both, then it doesn’t matter.
But they don’t.
So it does.
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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
I’m not well-versed on the subject, but is ticket scalping not a large-scale business at this point? Like, yeah individual ticket holders can be opportunistic, but don’t bots buy tickets by the thousands as soon as they go on sale?
Most of those “businesses” are run by just one person, or maybe a few friends. And how much money do you really think they could be making?
With that logic, we can say scalpers are class traitors, then!
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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.
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.
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.
It is much cheaper. IIRC, the IRS went after Microsoft because they “sold” the Windows IP rights to a small CD/DVD printing factory in Mexico that MS used to print some installation discs, saving an absurd amount of money in taxes due to avoiding US taxes on the IP.
The IRS spent millions of dollars attempting to get MS to pay up. MS damaged the careers of the people in the government that gave the IRS the resources to go after MS, and cost the IRS an outrageous sum in legal fees.
Craziest part of it all: MS managed to get the laws the IRS was going after them on changed. Through political donations and lobbying, MS spent considerably more than the IRS was going after them for, to ensure the law was changed in MS’s favor.
I’m probably getting a lot of details wrong but there are news articles about it you can look up. The IRS hasn’t been given the resources to attempt any common sense obvious big wins since.
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Fuck scalpers
The IRS doesn’t care if you do crime or are exploitative or are morally bad
They just want their cut
Edit: grammar
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.
Edit: grammer
Edit2: grammar
You’re saying that if they suspect someone of profiting off of let’s say, human trafficking, they’d just ask for the taxes and not report the violation?
No, its still a crime to do a crime, but if you profit from your crime and dont report it, its now a double crime! All sarcasm asside, this is what the feds used to nab Al Capone. It also makes it easier for the feds to seize things that may or should have been owed. Remember, even the Joker pays his taxes.
Human trafficking is profoundly illegal, whereas scalping is not (in most states (all but 16)) so this makes your comment pretty silly. Not to mention the massive gap in how bad those two things are…
Human trafficking is most definitely “a crime” which is what some people think the IRS doesn’t care about.
Yes I did say it’s a crime… it is profoundly illegal… my exact words. According to the law, scalping is only “a crime” in 16 states. People can think whatever they want, I think it’s stupid and should be illegal worldwide, but that doesn’t matter. Gotta put your feelings aside when dealing with things like this, and jumping to extremes like you did is irrational and silly.
let’s make the threshold $60 instead of $600
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
I have to report a $1 profit if that’s what I got from selling market shares. $60 is way too generous.
$6
anything more than the gas to deliver a ticket is a scam
I understand wanting to go after scalpers, but the $600 limit isn’t specifically for ticket reselling websites - it includes transactions not categorized under “Friends and Family” on places like PayPal as well.
I use various cashback websites who pay out via PayPal and I’m starting to get close to the limit. As soon as I cross it, I either have to give PayPal my SSN or have 24% withheld by the IRS.
If a friend accidentally sends me money via “Goods and Services” instead of “Friends and Family” on PayPal and puts me over the threshold, I’m the one in trouble.
people who resold tickets bad, ticketmaster who fixes prices good! win-win situation ?
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Fuck scalpers, but I refuse to look at the $600 tax rule as anything other than a way for the government to squeeze money from and spy more on the common people.
Edit: to clarify I’m not rooting for the scalpers, I just don’t want this governmental overreach to be put in a positive light just because its also affecting people we rightfully hate.
For those that don’t know. The $600 tax rule is a requirement that Zelle, Venmo, etc must report transactions over $600 to the government so they can be taxed. Get a $600 graduation gift from grandma? Taxed. Get $1000 from your roommates to pay rent? You now have to document and show that so its not taxed. Sell a bike (that you ALREADY paid sales tax on using money you ALREADY paid income tax on) for $800, would you look at that its going on the tax form.
Why? Isn’t the person selling the tickets for a $600 profit there one squeezing money from the common people?
If corporations paid the way they should the country would be in a lot less money issues than it is.
Here in the UK it’s often talked about and people get angry about Bob the builder doing cash only work and not paying his taxes. Just another plan from the government and media to cause in fighting rather than look at the real issue, big corps.
But also fuck scalpers so I’m torn.
Speculative profits should be heavily taxed, it doesn’t matter if it’s done by old money that runs the big corporation or by middle class people that are as morally bankrupt. Scalpers and oligarchs are just two strains of the same virus.
less money issues than it is.
Hard disagree. They’d just spend significantly more.
Yes? I’m against both of the parties in my comment. Maybe I made it sound like I’m in the scalpers side with my tax complaints, I’m not. I just don’t want this government overreach to be placed in a positive light just because its also affecting people we hate.
Yeah I agree - as a small time gigging musician, fuck scalpers and also fuck government overreach here. Anything that hurts scalpers (in all fields, but tickets especially) is interesting to me and the average concert goer, but if it comes at the cost of broadly limiting the used music gear market, among thousands of other used equipment communities, it’s misdirected legislature at best.
The companies and systems that enable scalping and customer extortion such as Live Nation absolutely need to be limited and restricted, but setting a broad limit across all secondhand sales at $600 when it was previously $20,000 is an inaccurate miscorrection. More informed and nuanced legislature is necessary
To add a bit more context to this for the unaware: LiveNation is the umbrella Corp that owns TicketMaster as well as over 70% (IIRC) of the live music industry in the U.S. They’re making a killing on tickets, alcohol sales, backend software licensing, and many different artist/event management firms. They also pay their employees the lowest wages relative to the rest of the live music industry, which was already a vastly underpaid industry before Live Nation came to power in the 2010’s. Further, the CEO’s salary increased by 1000% between 2019 and 2023 while the peasants got a meaningless raise from pre-inflation starvation wages to post-inflation starvation wages. They’re the epitome of an exploitative monopoly, at every level.
Source: Current part time employee of LiveNation and 14 year veteran of the live music industry.
A list of their subsidiaries: https://investors.livenationentertainment.com/sec-filings/annual-reports/content/0001193125-08-043193/dex211.htm?TB_iframe=true&height=auto&width=auto&preload=false
It’s not just transactions. $600 is the lower limit on taxable income. I used to do food delivery and if you make under $600 for the year it’s not reported and not taxable. You’re supposed to report any income over $600.
maybe they could go after ticketmaster’s near monopoly and constant breakage of agreements with gov. branches? just a thought
Why would the IRS be doing that
cause that would actually do good for the world
The IRS has zero jurisdiction to do that
Scalpers are predators, and captive markets like Ticketmaster give them a hunting ground.
By design. If it weren’t easy for scalpers and bots to scoop tickets in the first seconds they’re on sale, tours and venues wouldn’t be assured their sales are met. Then bot resellers start the actual sale, where the scalpers come in…you, the attendee likely getting sloppy 4ths.
Wait, someone paid more than $600 for a fucking concert?
Yes and often times way more than that. I checked prices for a Tool concert at a venue near me a few weeks ago and the section closest to the stage had tickets reselling for thousands of dollars. Obligatory fuck Ticketmaster…
They could have sold multiple tickets
Ah good point, that makes more sense.
Well as per article yes, but 600$ 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).
This was me a couple years ago but apparently scalpers resell tickets for THOUSANDS. My SO managed to snag a few for their MSRP which is reasonable but they sell out instantly and apparently there’s a market for them at those highly scalped prices. I don’t agree with it but 🤷♂️
I’m not gonna say that should be illegal, but, like, a thousand dollars feeds my family for nearly a year.
How are you surviving off of a dollar a day for food? Genuinely curious
If I had to guess…he’s lying?
I produce a lot of my own and mainly buy things like sugar and salt. When you live a low income/low cost lifestyle you kind of get sticker shock with how much people shell out for things.
I get by for 2 people on $50 per week in NJ near NYC by:
- Shopping at Aldi
- Going vegetarian unless eating out (rarely). Meat is very expensive, but many of my favorite produce is not much more expensive than before inflation started. We switched to egg whites from Costco instead of paying crazy prices for a dozen whole eggs.
- Learning how to cook healthy. Spinach, red onions, tomatoes, bagged legumes, whole wheat pasta are all dirt cheap
Oh sure $25 seems doable without any major losses. But $1 a day for extended periods for an entire family sounds really hard to sustain. But given their reply it seems they have a lot of other food sources they are considering free which makes those numbers make more sense.
Totally agree meat can be a luxury item although there can be good sales at times. And cooking instead of eating out is a massive money saver!
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So you didn’t like my reply about treating people with basic human decency, and this is how you behave? If this is a representative sample, I can see why you did time.
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You must be really really bored. Try reading a book, or watching a cloud, or doing something productive with your life.
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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.
Scalpers are absolutely the worst.
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.
Punishment? Huh, didn’t know the tax man doesn’t want me to make money.
Do you even know what the IRS is doing here? They aren’t punishing anyone. This is them literally making sure people pay the proper taxes on the profit.
Did… did you read the title?..
Wtf! People actually pay top $ for this? Fucking stupid 9-5s !! Just my 2 cent: 9-5 aka regulars are really important for the economy , without them the economy will crash but also 9-5s are not important because paying them living wage or paying them more can actually shift the balance of power.
Bro what
Lol the concept is really deep.
