For your eBay business selling vintage video games and collectibles, I'd recommend looking at 451120 - "Hobby, Toy, and Game Stores" since video games seem to be your primary focus. This code specifically covers retailers of video games and would be most accurate for your business. If you're selling a really mixed variety where no single category dominates, then 454110 - "Electronic Shopping and Mail-Order Houses" would be the safer general e-commerce option. The key is to track your sales by category for a month or two and see what makes up the majority of your revenue. That should guide your NAICS code selection. And don't worry too much - you can always update it as your business evolves! One tip: make sure you're keeping detailed records of your inventory costs and shipping expenses. These are often the biggest deductions for eBay sellers regardless of which NAICS code you choose.

Great question! I went through this exact same process last year when I started treating my eBay selling more seriously. For your situation selling vintage video games and collectibles, I'd definitely lean toward 451120 - "Hobby, Toy, and Game Stores" since video games seem to be your main focus. This code is specifically designed for businesses that sell games and hobby items, which sounds like a perfect fit. However, if your sales are really mixed across different categories without one clear winner, then 454110 - "Electronic Shopping and Mail-Order Houses" gives you more flexibility as a general e-commerce classification. One thing that helped me decide was looking at my sales data for the past few months and calculating what percentage came from each category. If 60%+ of your revenue is from video games, go with the hobby/game store code. If it's more evenly split, the general e-commerce code is safer. Also, don't stress too much about getting it "perfect" - the IRS cares more about accurate reporting of your income and expenses than having the absolutely perfect NAICS code. You can always adjust it next year if your business focus changes!

9 Hi all, small business landlord here. Please make sure you're sending those 1099s correctly! I've had tenants who either don't send them at all (which is a problem) OR who report the same payment across multiple years (even worse). As others have said, just report what you actually paid in the calendar year. And please double-check the mailing address - I get so many 1099s sent to old addresses even though I've updated my W-9 multiple times.

This is such a common issue for small business owners who had payment difficulties during tough times. I went through something similar when I had to catch up on several months of contractor payments after a slow period. The key thing to remember is that 1099 reporting follows the "cash method" - you report payments in the year you actually made them, regardless of when the work was performed or when the debt was originally incurred. So for your situation, all the rent payments you made in 2024 should be reported on your 2024 1099-MISC to your landlord, even if some of those payments were for rent that was originally due in 2023. Don't worry about the timing mismatch - this is exactly how the IRS expects it to be handled. Your landlord will report this as 2024 income on their tax return, which will match your 2024 1099 reporting. Just make sure you have good records showing the dates you actually made each payment, and you should be all set. The IRS is used to seeing these situations where businesses catch up on past-due obligations.

Has anyone else noticed that a lot of accountants seem confused about S corp basis calculations? I've had three different CPAs give me three different answers about how to handle distributions when we've had prior losses.

I'd definitely recommend getting a second opinion on this. Based on what you've described, it sounds like your tax preparer might be misunderstanding something about your situation. The key issue is tracking your basis correctly. Your basis in the S corp stock starts with your initial investment, gets reduced by your share of losses, gets reduced by distributions you receive, and gets increased by additional capital contributions or your share of income. If you made additional capital contributions during 2024 (like the $75K you mentioned in another comment), those should increase your basis and likely eliminate any capital gains treatment on your distributions. Make sure your tax preparer has accounted for all capital contributions, not just your original investment. Also, if you've made any loans to the S corp (even informal ones where you paid business expenses out of pocket), those create "debt basis" which can help absorb losses and avoid capital gains on distributions. I'd suggest asking your tax preparer to show you the specific basis calculation they're using. They should be able to walk through: starting basis + capital contributions + income - losses - distributions = ending basis. If that number goes negative, only the negative portion would be capital gains. Don't just accept their conclusion without understanding the math behind it - this is a common area where even experienced preparers make mistakes.

I work with a lot of clients who hold commodity ETFs, and there's a shortcut for handling these tiny expense transactions in tax software. In TurboTax: 1. Enter the info exactly as shown on your 1099-B 2. When asked for cost basis, enter the same amount as the proceeds ($0.28 in your case) 3. For "Sales expenses not included in proceeds" enter $0 4. For acquisition date, use your original purchase date This creates a $0 gain/loss transaction, which is the most accurate way to report these. Some tax experts argue you could technically calculate a tiny gain/loss based on your average cost basis, but the amount is so negligible it's not worth the effort.

Just to add another perspective on this - I've been dealing with SLV for several years now and the headache factor really depends on your tax software and how many other investments you have. If you're using basic tax software and SLV is your only "complicated" investment, it's manageable once you understand the pattern. But if you have multiple commodity ETFs, REITs with complex distributions, and other special situations, these micro-transactions can really add up to a lot of manual entry work. One thing I learned the hard way: keep good records of your original SLV purchase dates and amounts. When you have multiple purchases over time and these tiny expense allocations happening annually, it can get confusing to track which shares correspond to which original purchase for the acquisition date reporting. I now keep a simple spreadsheet just for tracking this. The silver lining (pun intended) is that once you've done it a few times, you'll be able to handle these transactions quickly each year. Just remember that the IRS gets copies of these 1099-B forms, so you definitely need to report them even though the amounts are tiny.

Just to add another perspective - I've been using the free IRS form ordering system for about 5 years now for my consulting business. Sofia is absolutely right that it's free and pretty reliable. The key thing I learned is to order forms in November or early December if you can plan ahead, because shipping times can get really unpredictable during peak tax season (January-March). One tip that might help - if you're ordering multiple different forms, the IRS system lets you create a "favorites list" so you don't have to search for the same forms every year. Also, they usually include a few extra forms beyond what you order, which is helpful for mistakes or last-minute clients. The 25-form limit per order that Sofia mentioned is per form type, not total - so you could order 25 copies of Form 1096, 25 copies of Form 1099-NEC, etc. all in the same order. This was a game-changer when I realized it!

Great thread! I wanted to share my experience as someone who's been through this exact frustration. I used to spend way too much money at office supply stores until I discovered you can indeed order most forms directly from the IRS for free. One thing I'd add to the excellent advice already given - if you're tech-savvy and don't mind printing at home, many forms like the 1096 are also available as fillable PDFs on the IRS website. You can download them, fill them out electronically, and print them on regular white paper. The IRS accepts these as long as they're printed clearly and all the information is legible. This hybrid approach has worked really well for me - I order a small batch of official forms from the IRS as backups, but do most of my day-to-day printing from the PDFs. It gives me the flexibility to print exactly what I need when I need it, without waiting for shipping or running to the store. Just make sure if you go the PDF route that you're downloading from the official IRS website (irs.gov) to ensure you have the most current version!