Reverb Rates Increasing

No matter how altruistic something starts out, it is always going to turn to money eventually. Often times I think about it, for early man life was all about hunting and gathering food, finding shelter. But modern man life is all about getting money and keeping it. Everything else is peripheral. We grow up and we are raised and taught to accumulate it. From then on it is the very substance of our life. Success in life is based on how much of it one can accumulate. Reverb was never going to stay what it was and remain successful.
 
No matter how altruistic something starts out, it is always going to turn to money eventually. . . . Success in life is based on how much of it one can accumulate.
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I hope you meant that in a negative way. I know many people (including myself) who gave up lucrative jobs to enjoy life a little more and do things that paid little or no money. I imagine there are a few more on this forum. Most people I've met whose goal was accumulating money and defined that as success are not very happy.

Yes, reaching a certain level of comfort for oneself and one's family is important, and I still believe it can be done in 1st-world countries within a steady-state economy and not one that must have unbridled economic growth to keep everyone happy.
 
Ed1 said:
I hope you meant that in a negative way. I know many people (including myself) who gave up lucrative jobs to enjoy life a little more and do things that paid little or no money.
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I agree. Unfortunately, many people see accumulating money as the only goal in life. I heard a man from Silicon Valley say that money is the report card of life. $1 million isn't enough. $1 billion isn't enough. Many people don't have homes, medical insurance, or food, but others have billions of dollars.
 
As the saying goes: He who dies with the most toys wins!

I have met people who honestly regarded money as the scorecard for who was doing the best. Who was the most successful, worth the most in their field. The most important. After a while, it's not the money but what it represents to others. That's what drives them. To be the top dog. The best of the best.

Or at least to be perceived as such.
 
I haven't bought or sold much on Reverb since they started charging tax. It was a good deal all the way around when you could buy or sell out of state, tax free. I might be more sympathetic to a small increase, but the increase is damn near 50%. I think they will be surprised how much business they will lose. Thankfully both the Flea Market and U.U. market places remain free for now ~
 
Mezcalero said:
I haven't bought or sold much on Reverb since they started charging tax. It was a good deal all the way around when you could buy or sell out of state, tax free. I might be more sympathetic to a small increase, but the increase is damn near 50%. I think they will be surprised how much business they will lose. Thankfully both the Flea Market and U.U. market places remain free for now ~
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Yes, the tax is annoying, but you can blame the politicians for that. They never have enough money to waste. If a company doesn't do a certain amount of business in your state, it doesn't have to collect the tax. C. B. Gitty - cigar box parts - doesn't charge me tax.

eBay even charges tax on items that are shipped from China, but that's not because of the product. It's because of the service. When sales tax went into effect in NY, there was no tax on any kind of food. They quickly "corrected" that by adding tax to food that was prepared - restaurants, hot dog vendors, etc.
 
As much as we all hate to pay taxes, it is the law. It always has been and the retailers that were not were breaking the law. While I like to circumvent paying I realize that asking a retailer to not charge me tax is the same as asking them to criminalize themselves for my monetary benefit. So it wasn't that the government imposed a new sales tax, they cracked down on the retailers who were not paying it. Fair enough.

But lately I ask myself, if I'm buying from someone and they are willing to cheat the government out of a few percentage points to make a sale, or if I see the instrument in Reverb and I call them up to get them to give me a break by doing an end run on Reverb where I saw it in the first place, maybe they might be willing to cheat me just a little as well. Maybe misrepresent the instrument, you know, not a lot, just a little bit. I don't know them and they don't know me, what is it going to hurt. I'll probably not notice that the strings are all worn out by people playing it on the showroom floor. It is just something in think about.
 
But if you are re-selling a used instrument on which tax has already been paid, and you are not a business, is the tax a double tax?
 
Martinlover said:
But if you are re-selling a used instrument on which tax has already been paid, and you are not a business, is the tax a double tax?
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You can consider it that, but most taxing authorities do not. If something is sold a hundred times, each sale is taxable. If you purchased a house or a used car, would you consider tax on the sale a double tax because someone, sometime once paid taxes on it?

Also, you don't have to be an official, organized business to be required to charge sales tax. The tax codes make no such differentiation.
 
Rllink said:
As much as we all hate to pay taxes, it is the law. It always has been and the retailers that were not were breaking the law. While I like to circumvent paying I realize that asking a retailer to not charge me tax is the same as asking them to criminalize themselves for my monetary benefit. So it wasn't that the government imposed a new sales tax, they cracked down on the retailers who were not paying it. Fair enough.

But lately I ask myself, if I'm buying from someone and they are willing to cheat the government out of a few percentage points to make a sale, or if I see the instrument in Reverb and I call them up to get them to give me a break by doing an end run on Reverb where I saw it in the first place, maybe they might be willing to cheat me just a little as well. Maybe misrepresent the instrument, you know, not a lot, just a little bit. I don't know them and they don't know me, what is it going to hurt. I'll probably not notice that the strings are all worn out by people playing it on the showroom floor. It is just something in think about.
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I doubt that any dealer would avoid collecting taxes that were required just to please a customer. I've always had to pay online sales tax on products from dealers who had a presence in NY. Now, it doesn't matter where the seller is located, just how much business he does in a particular state.

The most annoying part of this is that I have to pay sales tax on a sale that did not take place in NY. I've bought cars and boats in NH, and I had to pay the tax when I registered them in NY.

It wouldn't be so bad if all this excess money from sales tax and lotteries actually made a difference, but there are still as many pot holes in the roads as there were before sales tax went into effect. Politicians are experts at wasting money.
 
You're just paying something back for the stimulus money your government has been paying out.
Don't know how it works, actually, I don't want to rock any boats...
 
Rllink said:
As much as we all hate to pay taxes, it is the law. It always has been and the retailers that were not were breaking the law. While I like to circumvent paying I realize that asking a retailer to not charge me tax is the same as asking them to criminalize themselves for my monetary benefit. So it wasn't that the government imposed a new sales tax, they cracked down on the retailers who were not paying it. Fair enough.

But lately I ask myself, if I'm buying from someone and they are willing to cheat the government out of a few percentage points to make a sale, or if I see the instrument in Reverb and I call them up to get them to give me a break by doing an end run on Reverb where I saw it in the first place, maybe they might be willing to cheat me just a little as well. Maybe misrepresent the instrument, you know, not a lot, just a little bit. I don't know them and they don't know me, what is it going to hurt. I'll probably not notice that the strings are all worn out by people playing it on the showroom floor. It is just something in think about.
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Not sure what you're talking about. Reverb sold tax free for years. Are you saying they were breaking law the entire time. If you sell a used instrument here on U.U. do you pay tax? How about if you sell a used instrument to a friend without advertising it, do you pay tax?

Maybe I'm just ignorant to the law, or maybe everyone I know is knowing breaking the law when they buy and sell used things amongst themselves?
 
Mezcalero said:
Not sure what you're talking about. Reverb sold tax free for years. Are you saying they were breaking law the entire time. If you sell a used instrument here on U.U. do you pay tax? How about if you sell a used instrument to a friend without advertising it, do you pay tax?

Maybe I'm just ignorant to the law, or maybe everyone I know is knowing breaking the law when they buy and sell used things amongst themselves?
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I'm saying that sites like Reverb and eBay were playing fast and loose with it for a long time. The states complained to the point that the government tightened up on them. If you are making a private sale on UU then you don't have to collect taxes. If you are running Mezcalero Ukulele Sales as a store and using Reverb or ebay as your sales platform then yes. That is how it was explained to me. I do business using Amazon as one of my sales platforms. Amazon collects the sales tax for me. I think that sometimes those platforms that are both platforms for businesses and also host private sales it gets confusing. Sadly some private sellers get caught up. Anyway I'm not a tax lawyer, I'm just trying to navigate it all myself.

But I think the confusion comes from the distinction between a private sale between two people and a sale that is made on an online sales platform. But in regards to the UU Marketplace it specifically supports only private sales. Businesses are not allowed to sell there. Several years ago there was a person who got banned for selling enough ukuleles that the moderators determined they were conducting business there. That is how they remain exempt.
 
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Some states have tried numerous times to clamp down on garage sales to force the people having them to charge sales tax. Didn't work.

Gun shows were exempt from collecting sales taxes.

There used to be reciprocity agreements between neighboring states that if you lived in one state but bought a high ticket item in another, you could apply for a refund from the state where you bought it and pay the sales tax in the state where you live. But with computers and all the laws have changed quite a bit in that regard.

Here in Wisconsin, every new school year people would head for Minnesota to buy new clothes for their kids because MN doesn't charge sales tax on clothing.

In Ohio, take out food was not charged tax but if you ate inside the restaurant you were charged a sales tax. For decades, McDonalds charged sales tax on all of their drive thru sales. They had to pony up eventually to the state. And I think OH changed the law to cover all sales by restaurants. Most food bought in a store is not taxed in OH. But some foods are. I seem to recall that snack foods and desert items are taxed.

It gets complicated.
 
Kenn2018 said:
Some states have tried numerous times to clamp down on garage sales to force the people having them to charge sales tax.
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In NY, we don't have to charge sales tax for garage sales as long as it's not a continuing business. We used to have a garage sale every few years, but no more.
 
Jerryc41 said:
That's a very good idea. The buyer pays 5%, and you know the seller must also pay.
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Really? Reverb is now charging buyer too?
Or did i pay it all along and think it was all taxes (LOL)?
 
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