More stories

  • in

    Did You Sell Concert Tickets or Clothes? You May Owe Taxes

    If you received more than $5,000 for online sales of “goods or services” in 2024, you might get a Form 1099-K. Don’t ignore it, an expert says.If you sold personal items like concert tickets or used clothing online last year or received money for services through payment apps, you may get an unfamiliar tax form this year.A tax law change means most online marketplaces and payment apps must send the Internal Revenue Service a form called a 1099-K, with a copy to you, if you received more than $5,000 in payments for “goods or services” in 2024. That’s down from a threshold of $20,000 in payments and more than 200 transactions. (Starting in 2024, the number of transactions no longer matters.)“As the threshold keeps going down, it catches more people,” said Melanie Lauridsen, vice president for tax policy and advocacy at the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.Under the old cutoff, the forms mostly went to people running active businesses rather than to occasional or small-time sellers. “This substantial drop in the reporting thresholds could result in millions more taxpayers receiving Forms 1099 this filing season than in prior years,” according to a blog post by Erin M. Collins, the national taxpayer advocate, who leads a group within the I.R.S. that works on behalf of taxpayers.Here’s what to know about Form 1099-K:Who’s eligible to receive Form 1099-K?If you bought several concert tickets, for example, and resold them online at a markup, you could potentially meet the 2024 threshold for getting the form, Ms. Collins said in an interview. Tickets for big-name concerts, she said, such as performances by Taylor Swift, have reportedly sold for more than $1,000 per ticket. If the seller made money, the gain is taxable.The rule doesn’t apply to personal payments, like gifts or transfers of money to friends and family, the I.R.S. says. If you and a friend go to a concert, and your friend pays you for the ticket using a payment app, “you should not receive a Form 1099-K for the reimbursement and, generally, it would not be taxable,” according to “common situations” described on the agency’s website.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

  • in

    How to Manage Streaming Subscriptions As Service Prices Rise

    Canceling is simple. The tough part is remembering to do it.The dream of streaming — watch what you want, whenever you want, for a sliver of the price of cable! — is coming to an end.With all the price increases for video streaming apps like Amazon Prime Video, Netflix and Hulu, the average household that subscribes to four streaming apps may now end up paying just as much as a cable subscriber, according to research by Deloitte.To name a few of the price jumps for streaming video (without ads) in just over the past year: Amazon’s ad-free Prime Video is now $12 a month, up from $9; Netflix raised the price of its premium plan for watching content on four devices to $23 a month, from $20; Disney increased the price of its Hulu service to $18 a month, from $15; and HBO’s Max now costs $16 a month, up from $15.If, like many people, you subscribe to all those services, you are paying about $70 a month, roughly the same as a modest cable TV package.More changes on the horizon will have people paying more for streaming. Disney announced this month that it would crack down on password sharing for Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+. Netflix told shareholders last month to expect more price increases.Streaming services still offer more flexibility and potential to save than a cable bundle. If that’s what drew you to streaming, the solution may seem obvious: You could be more judicious about managing your subscriptions — by canceling Netflix as soon as you’re done bingeing “Love Is Blind,” for instance.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More