taxing question

alnavman

This has probably been answered in the past but how does everyone determine tax for items they bought years ago and don't have receipts for purchase price??? for example bought 1975 Topps set years ago...don't have receipt. sold for $200. is taxable income the whole $200 since I don't have any receipts??? or do you go by current market and determine whether you had a loss or gain???? if someone can direct me to a post about this THANKS!!

al.

mikeschmidt

Ultimately -- I don't think that a $200 issue is going to cause huge ripples at the IRS. Estimate what you paid for it, pay capital gains on the difference...and you're already being more compliant than 95% of the people on this board.

Cheers

blades3

That's exactly what I do. I've sold most of my collection that way and it's all estimates of what I paid. It gets more confusing when you have instances where you payed $60 for a box, pulled one good card and basically threw the rest away (or gave it away). Then the $60 cost all goes into that one card (at least the way I estimate). Unfortunately, those that do this like I do realize we are screwed if we are ever audited because we don't have receipts, but at least it shows we are trying our best to be compliant. My accountant actually advised me to fudge the numbers to avoid coming up with a negative net income number because that's a red flag.