TOPIC: Supreme Orb of Dragonkind

Regarding running a token store as a business. Can you deduct travel, hotel, TD tickets, etc. as a business expense? It seems to me* that you could legitimately do so, and that would go a long way to reducing any potential profits as reported to the IRS.

* I am not a tax professional. Consult a tax professional before making such decisions

For the record I am not trying to get down on any of you guys. I've dealt with Kirk and met you at WYC this past time. Anyone I have dealt with, including Kirk and Lazlo, are always nice and a pleasure to deal with. That is one of the selling points of playing this game is the community.

Steve wrote:

Kirk Bauer wrote: Finally, I would also like to see the ability to span $8k bonuses over multiple years. I suspect it doesn't happen because Jeff tracks this manually right now (from what I can tell) so it would get complicated. It would be cool if he could add it to the store software so it would track your purchases and automatically give you free bonuses for each $8k you hit (or whatever).

I would be a big fan, having missed getting an orb by an order or two

i would only back this, if you get the orb of the year you get to 8K..not a previous year

DrStupid v1.0 wrote: For the record I am not trying to get down on any of you guys. I've dealt with Kirk and met you at WYC this past time. Anyone I have dealt with, including Kirk and Lazlo, are always nice and a pleasure to deal with. That is one of the selling points of playing this game is the community.

I don't take offense There are definitely some players (not you) who don't care for token resellers though.

Kirk Bauer wrote:

DrStupid v1.0 wrote: For the record I am not trying to get down on any of you guys. I've dealt with Kirk and met you at WYC this past time. Anyone I have dealt with, including Kirk and Lazlo, are always nice and a pleasure to deal with. That is one of the selling points of playing this game is the community.

I don't take offense There are definitely some players (not you) who don't care for token resellers though.

I remember way back when, probably in 2006 or 2007, when I first listed prices on my token store instead of just GP value. There was nearly a riot. There were a lot of people even upset that anyone dared sell tokens on Ebay (it was really rare for quite some time). Things sure have changed...

Jeff321 wrote: Regarding running a token store as a business. Can you deduct travel, hotel, TD tickets, etc. as a business expense? It seems to me* that you could legitimately do so, and that would go a long way to reducing any potential profits as reported to the IRS.

* I am not a tax professional. Consult a tax professional before making such decisions

Yes, that is one of the benefits, writing off WYC and GenCon. So in my previous example if I made $1k profit I would have owed around $500 in taxes. But if I spend $1000 going to GenCon then I owe no taxes. Now I'm $4000 poorer cash-wise but paid for my GenCon trip, effectively spending $500 instead of $1000 to go.

But note that you must turn a profit 3 out of 7 years otherwise the IRS considers your business a hobby.

Other fun fact is you may need a business license in your state and you may need a sales tax license and you may need to collect and report on sales tax for in-state sales.

And don't get me started on how to properly evaluate the value of inventory when buying random goods and doing trades...

Jeff321 wrote: Regarding running a token store as a business. Can you deduct travel, hotel, TD tickets, etc. as a business expense? It seems to me* that you could legitimately do so, and that would go a long way to reducing any potential profits as reported to the IRS.

* I am not a tax professional. Consult a tax professional before making such decisions

The short answer is 'yes'. But three factors come into play :

1) You still have to pay for these things

2) You can only run at a loss for so long before you flip an audit flag. The IRS expects you to be attempting to make a profit, if they determine otherwise .. you can REALLY get hosed.

3) Inventory is an asset, not profit. You need to sell enough inventory to offset your expenses, but buying tokens becomes a taxable asset the second you take possession.

I wonder how many people are running actual businesses as token store. It's a hobby for me.

Mike Steele wrote: I wonder how many people are running actual businesses as token store. It's a hobby for me.

Not sure, but technically we all must report any profit we might make...

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Mike Steele wrote: I wonder how many people are running actual businesses as token store. It's a hobby for me.

The IRS expects you to pay taxes if you make money, hobby or no. And yes, I do.

Brad Mortensen wrote: .

Mike Steele wrote: I wonder how many people are running actual businesses as token store. It's a hobby for me.

The IRS expects you to pay taxes if you make money, hobby or no. And yes, I do.

Yup. If I buy a pair of socks and the dollar store and sell them to somebody for $4 that's taxable income... Now the lack of records and small dollar amount in that case means you can likely get away with not reporting it

Kirk, you mentioned being able to say you bought 1 $8k pack and sold half of the tokens for $5000 and being able to report that as $1000 profit.

If you buy 1 $8k pack and sell the 32 PYPs and 8 of the random Ultra Rares for say $100 each for $4000, can you report it as selling about half of your inventory, because assessed on a value per token, it roughly is? Or do you have to assess it based solely on number of tokens sold relative to number of tokens received from the order?

I really hope it's the former, otherwise that's just harsh.