Tax question: cogs and vip points

[stackables]

Trying to get some clarity on this topic.  If I buy a set and use some vip points, what do I record the cogs for the set?  For instance, if buy a set for $200 and use $20 vip points to get the price for $180. Do I record my cogs as $180 or $200.  Similar question would be credit card reward points.  If I use them to pay off some of my monthly bill, how does that factor into cogs? If you have an accountant do your taxes, how do they handle these situations? 

[gmpirate]

5 hours ago, stackables said:

Trying to get some clarity on this topic.  If I buy a set and use some vip points, what do I record the cogs for the set?  For instance, if buy a set for $200 and use $20 vip points to get the price for $180. Do I record my cogs as $180 or $200.  Similar question would be credit card reward points.  If I use them to pay off some of my monthly bill, how does that factor into cogs? If you have an accountant do your taxes, how do they handle these situations? 

"Personal" rewards are generally not treated as income.

If you are operating as a business cogs is literally what you paid after any and all discounts.  A discount is still a discount whether you apply it to a specific purchase or towards a total bill.

[BrickLover80]

7 hours ago, stackables said:

Trying to get some clarity on this topic.  If I buy a set and use some vip points, what do I record the cogs for the set?  For instance, if buy a set for $200 and use $20 vip points to get the price for $180. Do I record my cogs as $180 or $200.  Similar question would be credit card reward points.  If I use them to pay off some of my monthly bill, how does that factor into cogs? If you have an accountant do your taxes, how do they handle these situations? 

My understanding (I'm not an accountant) is that what matters is what's on the receipt/invoice. So if you use VIP points to get $20 off, the price is discounted by $20 for tax purposes. This is why it makes sense to use VIP points for personal sets. Same with Kohls Cash and similar discounts. Earn them while buying Lego to sell, use them for personal purchases. 

Credit card rewards I have never factored when computing my cost. I mostly go for travel rewards, which are difficult to value anyway. But even for cash back, the redemption isn't tied to a particular line item on the bill. So unless you strictly separate your business card from personal use, I wouldn't know how to do it.

[VargasA]

Question about tax and cost of goods. I have a bunch of sets I brought from europe, that I acquired there many years ago. I am talking sets released in 2007 to 2014. Most of them sell for over 100 but my question is since I don't have those receipts, I read that I should assume fair market value at the time I acquired them. Is that ya'll understanding too? I mean lego aside I bet a lot of people sells a lot of stuff on mercari, ebay, etc that they don't have the receipt for.

I have around 15 to 20 sets like those so it's not I am going to sell them for 100k combined  But just wanted to ask you all what do you do when you want to sell a set you don't have the receipt for when you purchased it. 

 

Also anyone knows a good site where we can see the "release price" of a specific old set? Just so I confirm the FML without a lot of assumptions.

thanks!

[stackables]

On 6/26/2022 at 11:54 AM, VargasA said:

Question about tax and cost of goods. I have a bunch of sets I brought from europe, that I acquired there many years ago. I am talking sets released in 2007 to 2014. Most of them sell for over 100 but my question is since I don't have those receipts, I read that I should assume fair market value at the time I acquired them. Is that ya'll understanding too? I mean lego aside I bet a lot of people sells a lot of stuff on mercari, ebay, etc that they don't have the receipt for.

I have around 15 to 20 sets like those so it's not I am going to sell them for 100k combined  But just wanted to ask you all what do you do when you want to sell a set you don't have the receipt for when you purchased it. 

 

Also anyone knows a good site where we can see the "release price" of a specific old set? Just so I confirm the FML without a lot of assumptions.

thanks!

Did you record the price you paid anywhere?  If not, you probably should use msrp for them. 

[keymomachine]

On 6/26/2022 at 11:54 AM, VargasA said:

Also anyone knows a good site where we can see the "release price" of a specific old set? Just so I confirm the FML without a lot of assumptions.

I've found BrickSet is the best one for that info. Not always complete, but has it for most sets plus you can search their database pretty well and even export a lot of info.