Ebay Tax

Ebay Tax,Attention, eBay sellers: Congress eyes $300B tax gap

Don't tax you, don't tax me, tax that fellow behind the tree. — Russell B. Long, late senator from Louisiana

If you're self-employed, sell used items occasionally on eBay or own a home, now would be a good time to start keeping really good records. Your tax returns could receive more scrutiny, thanks to a growing push to narrow the "tax gap" — the billions of dollars in federal taxes that go uncollected every year.

Ebay Tax-Democrats and Republicans don't agree on much, but they do share a desire to narrow the tax gap. That's not surprising. The IRS estimates that the tax gap exceeds more than $300 billion a year. Collecting even half that amount would let Congress repeal the alternative minimum tax — a parallel tax system that increasingly threatens middle-income taxpayers — without raising taxes or cutting government programs.

Ebay Taxpayers like the idea of closing the tax gap, too. More than 86% of taxpayers believe that cheating on income taxes is unacceptable, according to a survey released last month by the IRS Oversight Board.

But closing the tax gap is a lot more complicated than chasing down the proverbial deadbeats who hide money under the mattress. Government proposals to narrow the gap would affect people who probably don't think of themselves as scofflaws. And tax experts say the IRS can't make a serious dent in the tax gap unless it conducts more audits.

"If you're going to do away with the entire tax gap, it's going to be real painful for everybody," says Mel Schwarz, a partner at Grant Thornton's national tax office in Washington.

The IRS estimates that unpaid taxes from individuals, as opposed to big corporations, account for more than 70% of the tax gap. And within that group, the self-employed are considered the biggest offenders. Sole proprietors who underreport their income and self-employment taxes account for roughly one-third of the tax gap, the IRS says.

The Treasury Department has proposed requiring credit card companies to report to the IRS payments made to small businesses and other self-employed workers. That would allow the IRS to compare the self-employed workers' tax returns with the payments and determine whether they're underreporting their income.

But groups representing small-business owners worry that the proposal could increase the costs that credit card companies charge small businesses. More fundamentally, they say, the IRS figures fail to distinguish between sole proprietors who deliberately hide income and those who make honest mistakes.

"They don't make it easy for you," says Dennis Waters, 55, of Exeter, N.H., who buys and sells antique photographs via his website, www.finedags.com. "Every year, they're changing the rules, changing the types of deductions. You can't plan ahead to try and do something."

Complicated Ebay tax returns

Because of the complexity of their returns, many self-employed workers must pay someone to do their taxes, which reduces their profits, says Todd McCracken, president of the National Small Business Association. Those who can't afford to hire a professional must take time away from their businesses to meet complex reporting requirements, such as filing estimated taxes every quarter, he says.

They need to keep comprehensive records, too, because sole proprietors are up to three times more likely to be audited than are individual taxpayers who don't file a Schedule C, the form used by self-employed workers to report their business income.

"Chances are, you'll be audited if you're in business long enough," says Frederick Daily, a tax attorney and author of Stand Up to the IRS.

Chuck Smith Jr., co-owner of JR Services, a mortgage servicing company in Norton, Ohio, knows that all too well. Since he went into business for himself in the 1970s, he's been audited three times.

None of the audits resulted in a higher tax bill, but in one case, he had to track down a receipt for a used truck cap. In an e-mail message, Smith said he now saves receipts for everything, some for as little as 50 cents.

A stepped-up effort to capture unreported income would lead to more audits of the self-employed. And it could also prove costly for families who employ nannies or other full-time household help.

If you paid a nanny $1,500 or more in 2006, you're supposed to file Schedule H with your tax return and withhold a portion of your employee's pay for Social Security, Medicare and unemployment tax.

Few pay nanny Ebay tax

But despite some high-profile cases of nanny-tax evasion, the tax is widely ignored. In 2003, the most recent year available, only about 241,000 taxpayers filed Schedule H, according to the IRS. The International Nanny Association estimates that about 1 million households employ nannies in the USA. Families bypass the nanny tax for many reasons. Some are already struggling to pay for child care and can't afford it.

Others employ undocumented workers. And some don't understand the rules, or think the tax is too complicated or burdensome, says Robert King, co-owner of Legally Nanny, an Irvine, Calif.-based company that helps people pay nanny taxes.

But this much is clear, King says: If the IRS audits your return and finds you have an off-the-books nanny, you'll owe back taxes and interest — along with penalties for tax evasion and fraud.

Other taxpayers who could be affected by efforts to narrow the tax gap include:

•Online sellers. More than 200 million people buy and sell items on eBay. If you use eBay or another Internet auction site to sell old stuff that's been piling up in your garage, you probably don't have to worry about paying taxes on the proceeds. But if you earn extra income by selling items online, you're supposed to pay taxes on your profits.

An IRS advisory committee recommended last year that online auction sites be required to file reports of sales transactions with the IRS. The committee also suggested requiring sellers to obtain a taxpayer identification number, which would let the government track the transactions.

A crackdown probably wouldn't affect professional sellers. Nor would it affect people who sell used personal items on eBay for less than they originally paid for them. Proceeds from those sales, like money earned from a garage sale, aren't taxable.

But it could cause headaches for people who occasionally buy items at yard sales and sell them online months later, Grant Thornton's Schwarz says. To calculate their profits, those people would have to keep records of the amount they originally paid — known as the basis — for every item they sell. That kind of inventory accounting "is sophisticated even for people who do taxes for a living, much less a guy who is trying to make a little extra money," Schwarz says.

EBay spokeswoman Catherine England says the proposals reflect "a misunderstanding of how eBay's business model works."

EBay doesn't have records on transactions, because once a winning bid is posted, the sale takes place offline, she says. "We have no way to confirm whether or not that transaction actually happened," she says.

•Homeowners who deduct property Ebay taxes.

One big benefit of homeownership is the ability to deduct all sorts of expenses. In fiscal 2006, homeowners deducted nearly $20 billion in real estate taxes and nearly $70 billion in mortgage interest. But the non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation says it believes homeowners are deducting more property taxes and mortgage interest than the law allows — and that tightening those deductions could reduce the tax gap.

In a report to Congress last year, the committee said many homeowners' real estate tax deductions include user fees and special assessments for improvements. Those aren't legal deductions. But it's an easy mistake to make, the committee said, because property tax bills often don't distinguish between deductible taxes and non-deductible fees.

Many homeowners also incorrectly deduct "points" — prepaid interest — when they refinance their mortgages, the committee report said. Under the tax code, points are fully deductible on a mortgage to buy a home, but points on a refinanced mortgage must be prorated over the life of the loan.

To address both issues, the committee recommended increasing reporting requirements for local governments and mortgage lenders. That would lead to more IRS scrutiny of the deductions, and more audits of homeowners who claim them incorrectly.

More audits?

Ebay Tax- The IRS has increased the rate of audits in recent years, particularly among high-income earners and the self-employed. Still, most taxpayers are more likely to be hit by a meteor than be audited by the IRS.

Some analysts say the IRS can't close the tax gap without significantly increasing audits. But doing so would risk the kind of backlash that led to congressional hearings of allegedly abusive collection tactics in the mid-1990s.

IRS Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson says she believes audits can be more effective if they're targeted at specific problem groups, such as self-employed workers who are paid in cash.

If the IRS audited a food vendor in a New York City neighborhood, she says, he would probably talk about it with other vendors. They'd get nervous and start reporting more of their income, she says. That's more effective, Olson adds, than "scattershot audits."

Meanwhile, tax watchdogs and consumer advocates argue that Congress won't make real progress toward closing the tax gap unless it simplifies the tax code. Olson agrees that the tax code is too complicated but says that's hardly an excuse to cheat. "We have to start talking about paying taxes as a civic duty," she says. "I'm really proud of our system being based on that trust."

eBay Internet Online Casinos

Ebay invites internet regulation against online casinos and others Due to recent attempts by United States’ politicians aiming to curb the online casinos industry, shares of online casinos are entering a dangerous period on various stock markets.The bill against online casinos is designed to hit online casinos in the pocket, to “cut the money flow from gamblers to internet sites by prohibiting the use of credit cards, checks and fund transfers to be used to settle wagers.”All of the major online casinos are based in offshore tax nations where they are able to offer online casinos and online sports betting sites over the internet to American Internet users.Under the Wire Act, the United States Justice Department considers online casinos to be illegal. The act also does not allow wagers on “sporting events,” which online casinos allow. Nevertheless, the act has failed to strictly enforce the regulation of online casinos. The threat to online casinos still looms however, but some online casinos executives are taking it in stride.In a recent development, however, the global internet giant Ebay has invited regulation of online casinos and is backing the online casinos ban.Rep. Bob Goodlatte is in the process of pushing through Congress a bill that would "ban" Internet gambling. Online auction firm EBay has thrown its support behind Goodlatte's efforts. Why would an Internet company open its arms to congressional regulation of the Internet, some have asked?Some believe that eBay is attempting to win favor with Goodlatte, who also happens to sit on the Congressional Internet Caucus. There's probably some truth to that. But there's another, more likely explanation for eBay selling out the e-commerce world: Good, old-fashioned protectionism.First, a brief history lesson from the article:eBay owns PayPal, the popular, online payment system favored by millions of auction sites, membership-based, sites, and bloggers. This wasn't always the case. PayPal was actually founded in the late 1990s by Peter Thiel and Max Levchin, two libertarian-minded Silicon Valley entrepreneurs with a revolutionary vision. Thiel and Levchin saw the potential for PayPal to grow into a kind of private currency.The young start-up never materialized. In the end, complying with the regulators, appeasing the politicians and fighting off the civil and criminal litigation was too much to bear. Thiel and Levchin abandoned their vision, and sold PayPal to eBay, a company with an established Internet presence, an experienced legal team on staff, and -- to the detriment of PayPal's loyal customers -- a conciliatory corporate culture.One of the first things eBay did after acquiring PayPal was to announce an even more restrictive policy, forbidding customers from using PayPal for adult-oriented products and services, as well as "non-adult services whose Web site marketing can be reasonably misconstrued as allowing adult material or services to be purchased using PayPal," a move that coincided with the Bush administration's war on Internet pornography.So, it seems as if Ebay is looking to protect its own interests, which go against online casinos.

eBay.com Online Auction Tips

eBay.com Online Auction Tips, eBay.com, the worlds largest online auction site, continues to dominate the online shopping world. With over 27 million active users buying and selling everything from web hosting to small towns. What's next? Planets for sale on eBay? There's no place in the galaxy like eBay! Review these basic tips for eBay.com buyers and sellers before bidding or selling.

eBay.com Buyers' Tips

on eBay.com Online Auction Tips, it is normally to the buyer's advantage to pay with a credit card, whether via PayPal or direct or with an escrow service. Most credit card companies offer their cardholders some type of protection against fraud. Never pay using a check or money order, if possible. Online fraud is increasing according to consumer advisor Clark Howard. Leave eBay.com feedback only after receiving the product and addressing any issues you may have with the seller via e-mail. Use the numerous "My eBay" resources to keep track of your bids and offers and get e-mail notifications on your bids. The eBay.com community forums are the probably the best source for help available on eBay.com. Due to the huge volume of help requests, don’t get your hopes up for a human to respond back to a you and certainly not by phone.

Watch the eBay.com feedback very closely. This is most important in judging seller credibility. If over 5% of the feedback remarks are negative or neutral, consider purchasing from another seller. Don't buy from eBay.com sellers with under 10 feedback ratings if possible. Be especially careful of anyone with negatives on large ticket items. Be mindful of eBay.com sellers who consistently have a high percentage of 0 eBay.com feedback bidders. Some eBay.com sellers may be artificially running up the market for their item, hoping you will be the high bidder. Pay promptly. You will receive higher praise from eBay.com sellers.
Always leave eBay.com feedback. Some eBay.com buyers with over 100 comments stop leaving eBay.com feedback, thinking that with such high numbers, they have achieved sellers nirvana. This could create a problem over time. Don’t get emotional with eBay.com bidding. Set the price you are willing to pay ahead of time and stick with it. Be like Mr. Spock and don't give in to emotion over logic. Respond to all questions from inquiring eBay.com bidders promptly.

eBay.com Sellers' Tips
eBay Online Auctions Tips, Always list a photo in your eBay.com auction, even if it’s a stock picture from the Internet. List concise specs and details of your eBay.com item in the description. Is the item you're posting on eBay new or just opened and never used or in fair condition? These seemingly small details can often make the difference in a higher bid for your product. Mention comments in your follow up e-mail after your eBay.com auction is closed. Example: I sent your item today via Priority mail. I hope you enjoy it. I appreciate any positive ebay feedback you may want to leave and I plan to do the same for you as well. Send the merchandise only after you have received payment for your eBay.com auction item, even if it’s from a family member. Leave comments only after the eBay.com buyer confirms receipt of the product, either via e-mail or the eBay.com comments form.

eBay Tips, eBay keywords

These Ebay tips will make your pockets jingle, jangle, jingle -- enjoy !

#1: eBay Keywords you put in your item description are the key to your Ebay success. Put in any word or phrase that legitimately pertains to your item, a word or phrase a potential bidder might type as his search word or phrase. For example, I list a lot of celebrity items--mostly magazines, sports cards, photos--& often, I begin my description by saying, for instance, "The pride of Hoboken, New Jersey, Frank Sinatra became a big . . ." -- see how I squeezed in his name & state, both words that might be searched for by local collectors. Your choice of keywords is limited only by your imagination.It pays to take an extra 10 minutes to do a thorough description of your item. Don't settle for doing a paragraph. Many times, when I see an item with a paragraph description, I just laugh & bid on it, knowing that I can do a better job of listing it than the seller did.

#2: Do this today. This is the best thing an Ebayer can do! Ready to get free Ebay advertising & get more traffic to your auctions? Here's how:Go to ebay.com and click on "Site Map" near the top of the page. Then, under the "Services" heading, click "About Me." Go through the 1, 2, 3 steps to create your own "About Me" page (it's fast & easy). Once your "About Me" page is up and running, you need to start being at least an occasional message poster on the various Ebay message boards. These are found by going to ebay.com, clicking on "Community" at the top of the page, and scrolling down to "Discussion, Help, & Chat," links to the message boards.You can either add a comment to an on-going discussion or start a new discussion of your own. And any time someone reads any of your comments, an icon link to your "About Me" page will be available to them. Ebay users are curious creatures, and they will be curious about you . . . and your auctions, so they will click on your "About Me" link and be presented with all your auctions.These message boards perform like neon-lit billboards for your auctions; but be careful, because they are quite addictive!

#3: Sellers--specialize! Devote most of your activity to 1 or 2 areas, such as sports cards or whatever. When you specialize, you slowly gain knowledge of your field, & if you do it long enough, you acquire expert knowledge, & you will have, as a bidder or as a garage sale browswer, a good idea of what an item is worth & whether or not you might auction it for a profit.Specialization has other benefits. You get more repeat customers, & people spread the word about how "So-and-so" (you!) might have this or that item, & that So-and-so is trustworthy. (I've even had a couple regulars tell me that one of the first things they do each day is check my auctions because I list what they bid on.)Customer service, always crucial, is even more crucial to a specialist, because you want the good word spread about you, not the bad. Tend to these customer service details by wrapping items securely, double-checking every address you write, shipping promptly, & refusing to gouge anyone on postage.

#4: Sellers, be seasonal. If there's a holiday coming up, mention it in your item description; and if you are able to couple that holiday with some hot item, even one having nothing to do with the item you're listing, include that, too; for instance, at Christmastime, I close my listings with: "Have a Harry Potter Christmas." This will bring Christmas browsers & Harry Potter browsers to your item.

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#5: When typing the item description for your listing, try to type numerals instead of spelling out numbers; for instance, type "16" instead of "sixteen." This is because a lot of potential bidders do searches for single items from a set, like card 16 from a set of 250 trading cards. People looking up items having nothing to do with what you're selling might have their eye caught by your listing, just because they have numerals in common. And the idea is to get as many eyeballs on your listing as you can.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------#6: (This could also be called Ebay 101, but many don't realize it.) Don't list an item and set the minimum bid as $10. Because of the way Ebay's fee schedule is set up, if you list it as $9.99 instead, you will save money. Nor should you list anything with a minimum bid of $25, $50, or $200; always shave a penny off these figures, and you will save each time!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------#7: If you aren't already signed up with an online payment service (such as Paypal), join one now. Here's why. Every time you purchase an Ebay item through one of these services, you save the price of postage to send payment. And as a lister, in each of your listings, you can point out how using a service will save potential customers the price of a stamp to mail their payment; that might be just the incentive to turn a potential bidder into a satisfied customer. Those stamps will add up to dollars in a hurry.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------#8: In your contact email you send out to your winning bidders, always close by saying that a blank email from them will let you know that they got your email all right. Then add, in parentheses, that if they put the letter "K" in the subject line of their blank email to you, you will occasionally (maybe once a month) send them an email telling them when you have up for bid items similar to the one on which they bid. You will be surprised at how much extra traffic this can bring your way.Save the "sent" contact message and use it later for other winning bidders, changing only the things that change with each auction: the auction item number, the winning bidder's email address, the total of his bid plus postage, etc. It will save you time.If your email system has such a feature, familiarize yourself with the "signature": a brief statement that automatically adds itself to the end of your outgoing emails. Make your email signature a link to your auctions! If your email system doesn't have the signature feature, find one that does. You might wish to try hotmail.com or yahoo.com.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------#9: ( Two basic tips counted as one): (14a.) Use a spell checker of some sort to check all the words used in your item description. Whenever an Ebay user clicks the box beneath the search box, the box saying "Search in title & description," that turns every word in your description into a keyword (words used by people doing searches for items), instead of only the keywords in your title. A misspelled keyword is a squandered opportunity. (14b.) Learn a little HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) to jazz up your listings. It's not that difficult, and it's fun.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------#10: Do searches for items similar to the ones you put up for auction. You can learn plenty from your competition. What do the listings of these other sellers have that yours don't? Can you improve on something they do?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------#11: Buy in lots (more than one item per auction, say, 25 baseball cards at once) and sell individually (one card/item at a time). You just get more money that way; trust me.Search suggestions:baseball lotfootball lots(Notice the use of singular and plural.)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------#12: When you sell items in lots, be sure to mention in your listing how much the buyer will save on postage buying in lots instead of individual items; do the math & show the actual savings.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------#13: Put something friendly at the end of your auction listings. It can be anything from "Thanks for looking" to "Please email me about any questions you might have about this item." This builds confidence and a sense of goodwill--repeat customers.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------#14: At any hour of the day, go to Ebay and do a search for old. The variety of items this search brings up is unlimited, and you can add variety to your inventory by snagging something no one else has even spotted yet. It's always fun to find things to resell that you had never even considered before. Further . . . search for old (my favorite search word). Study the search results returned. Often you can find items that haven't been listed very wisely. Let me give you an outrageous example. Suppose you did a search for old, and in the results was an item listed as Old Book. You notice there are no bids, and there are only two minutes left in the auction. You click on the link and discover it is a signed 1st edition of Steinbeck's "Grapes of Wrath"! You get it for practically nothing. Now wouldn't you be able to list it on Ebay yourself and sell it for a nice profit by choosing your keywords carefully? You could use Signed John Steinbeck book or any combination of more descriptive and specific keywords. My sister uses this trick to buy EVERYTHING she sells on Ebay. She says it's a lot of fun for her because she gets to be creative in seeking out these items and once again while relisting them.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------#15: When composing your item title, whenever you can, include the words old, vintage, and sexy. These are traffic builders and some of the more popular search words other than proper nouns. Think up some others!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------#16: Hang it on the wall! If you will be selling what you consider to be a quality item, consider using the gallery feature eBay offers. It's only $0.25, and you would be surprised at how many bidders use--and use exclusively!--the "Gallery Items Only" search feature. This way these "Gallery Items Only" eBay searchers will be a part of your pool of potential bidders, and your item won't be passed over by them because it's not featured in the gallery. So, hang it on the wall! (But not for items you are listing for a quarter.)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------#17: I skip bidding on a lot of auctions because of excessive postage. Don't gouge and alienate your customers by charging excessive postage. Charge only what it costs to mail plus enough to cover the true cost of your package, & no more. The lower your postage, the more bidders you will have, thus more money in your pocket.Give bidders an option to buy insurance; that can save everyone headaches if something goes amiss; and when that inevitable something does go wrong, you, as seller, will be able to ask: "Was the item you bid on insured?" That will put you in a position of bargaining strength when something is lost in the mail. (Personally, I gave up offering insurance because too many bidders were wanting to insure $2 items, & the insurance form you have to fill out on a claim is so long; just being honest here.)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------#18: Your eBay search has led you to what you think might be the bargain of the century. You were looking for something you might buy on the cheap and sell for a nifty profit--but will you be able to?For me, a good rule of thumb is that an item is worth (in pure cash only, sentimental value isn't considered in this example) as much as it goes for on eBay. In taking my own advice, I always check what an item I'm considering bidding on might actually return. Here's how:Say the item I'm considering is a 1963 Topps Roger Maris baseball card. I do a search for:1963 Topps Roger MarisThen eBay returns my results, a list of links for that item. Now comes the trick. Down the left column of the page it says "Completed Items." Click that, and it will take you to a list of links for completed auctions of that Roger Maris card, giving you a firm idea of what you might expect to be able to sell the card for if you were to bid on one and try to resell it.You could accomplish the same thing by bookmarking a current auction and waiting for it to end--up to 10 days!--but why do that when the info is right at your fingertips, and you need to know how much to bid right now?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------#19: Always have an image of your item for potential bidders to view. Many people pass on bidding for an item they don't get to see first. This also helps limit the number of items you have returned to you because you failed to describe them accurately enough to please those tough customers out there, saving you return postage in the process. Also, an item with an accompanying image just naturally gets more "hits" because many people search only gallery listings. A scanner can pay for itself very quickly. If you just can't afford one and are auctioning a relatively valuable item, let a copy company make a scan for you. If you don't show images, you are losing bidders/money. If you have a scanner, more people are bidding on your items.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------#20: Cutting down on the number of items returned to you is easy. You need only be thoroughly descriptive in your item descriptions (showing an image of the item always helps too). Leave nothing out. If there is a tiny crease in the item, say so. To omit mentioning these things frustrates customers and gives you an air of not being trustworthy, and those customers will avoid your future listings like they were Typhoid Mary. Reading a longer description is much better than a bidder having to repackage the item you sent and send it back to you.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------#21: If you are searching on eBay to bid on a particular item, wouldn't it make good sense to find it misspelled in its listing? After all, since it's misspelled, that means less people will find it--thus less bidders, less competition for the item. That saves you money! Here's how to do it:Say you were looking for a 1964 Topps Roberto Clemente baseball card. Here's what you can type to find all the misspelled listings of items for 1964 Topps Roberto Clemente:1964 Topps Roberto Cle* -ClementeA person might run into trouble spelling "Clemente" once he reached the first "e," so you put a "wild card" (that little star symbol above "8" on your keyboard) right there. The reason for the "-Clemente" is that you are looking for misspellings, and this "-Clemente" gets rid of all the correctly spelled listings.You might get no results at all. You might wind up with a bunch of results for Roberto Alomar. To get rid of those unwanted results, after "-Clemente" you would need only skip a space and type:-AlomarYou get the idea.Here's what you would type to find misspelled Hank Aaron items (all items, not just a specific year and brand):Hank Aa* -AaronAgain you will get some unwanted results, but if you weed through them, you might just find an Aaron item no one else has discovered yet and pick it up for a song!Play around with that "wild card" (*); it will match any character or group of characters from where you place it in a word all the way to the end of that word.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------#22: If you find yourself unable to sleep during the wee hours, say, 3:00 in the morning, do yourself a favor and cruise eBay for a while in search of bargains listed (foolishly!) to close at this time. When everyone else is asleep, that is the time to snag a bargain. Go to ebay.com. Search for the item you want, maybe 1972 Topps. A list of items will be returned to you. Click one of those links, maybe the one that says 1972 Topps 50 different cards. Right beneath the item title and number is a link to that broader category to which the item belongs. Click on it. You get another list of links. Find near the top of the page where it says "Going, Going, Gone." Click that and be taken to a list of items that are ending relatively soon. Why not place a bid? After all, everyone else is sleeping. Final bid prices are automatically lower because of a lack of bidder competition, and that can mean tremendous savings for you

.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------#23: Do a search for auction items that are to be listed for three days only. Your searches might be:3-day3 dayThree dayThree-dayYou might want to add an "s" to them. Then you can refer to my tip #18 and see what you might expect to resell the item for. Then, if you feel you can reauction it for a nice profit, list it for 10 days and see what it goes for. If you got it for a bargain after 3 days, you might auction it for a killing if you let your auction run for 10 days

.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------#24: Unless you can't help doing otherwise, list your items in Prime Time (9-11pm Eastern, 6-8pm Pacific). To list at any other time is costing you bids. The closing moments of your auction is when your item listing "bubbles up" to the top of more eBay searches, even searches not directly related to the item you have up for bid, so try not to have your auctions end (they end exactly 3, 5, 7, or 10 days after you list, right down to the second) while the majority of your potential customers are sleeping or are at work. Don't rely on that one poor sap shopping at 2:00 AM to find your item, because if he does, it will just be a bargain for him.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------#25: In your item listings, use simple words that everyone knows.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------#26: Feedback is important. But don't let someone's having a negative or two keep you from bidding on one of their items. All sellers run into that customer who is impossible to please no matter how far they bend over for him. And someone may have given them a vengeance feedback, one that had nothing at all to do with the actual transaction.So unless someone has a disproportionate amount of negative feedback, you might consider giving him or her the chance to please you as a customer. It's up to you. They just may have the bargain of the century for you. And they will be eager to rehabilitate their "tarnished" image of having negative feedback. However, do be wary, and show good sense in all your transactions.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------#27: When you leave feedback, as a bidder or as a seller, always mention--specifically--what item was exchanged (not the item number, something like "...the great Lady Diana magazine"). That way, people viewing feedback will see what item you just acquired that they might like to own. And if you have sold an item, maybe they will think you have one more that they can purchase. It gives feedback viewers a chance to see what kind of merchandise you bid on or sell. This trick can make all your customers' and sellers' feedback act as a more active link to your items than some static feedback that says nothing but "Great deal. A+++." And while the link to the item expires after some 30 days, your mention of the item will remain till Doomsday. This is a "red-letter" bonus because most Ebayers aren't doing it . . . yet! (Just check anyone's feedback & see.)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------#28: Pocket $10 or 10 cents at a time as an Ebay affiliate.It can really add up over a year's time!

eBay Prohibited Items

Prohibited items

eBay prohibited items, in its earliest days was essentially unregulated, but as eBay grew, it found it necessary to restrict or forbid auctions for various items. Note that some of the restrictions relate to eBay.com (the US site), while other restrictions apply to specific European sites (such as Nazi paraphernalia). Regional laws and regulations may apply to the seller or the buyer.

eBay Prohibited Items, Among the hundred or so banned or restricted categories:

Tobacco (tobacco-related items and collectibles are allowed)

Alcohol (alcohol-related collectibles, including sealed containers, as well as wine sales by licensed sellers are allowed)

Drugs and drug paraphernaliaNazi paraphernaliaBootleg recordingsFirearms and ammunitionUsed underwear and dirty used clothingTeacher's editions of textbooks including homeschool teacher's editions.

Human parts and remainsLive animals (with certain exceptionsCertain copyrighted works or trademarked items.

Lottery tickets, sweepstakes tickets, or any other gambling items.Military hardware such as working weapons or explosives.

Virtual items from massively multiplayer online games.

Many other items are either wholly prohibited or restricted in some manner.

Unusual sale items

In June 2005, the wife of Tim Shaw, a British radio DJ on Kerrang! 105.2, sold Tim's Lotus Esprit sports car with a Buy It Now price of 50 pence after she heard him flirting with model Jodie Marsh on air. The car was sold within 5 minutes, and it was requested that the buyer pick it up the same day.In May 2005, a Volkswagen Golf that had previously been registered to Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (who had been elected Pope Benedict XVI) was sold on eBay's German site for €188,938.88. The winning bid was made by the GoldenPalace.com online casino, known for their outrageous eBay purchases.In September 2004, the owner of MagicGoat.com sold the contents of his trash can to a middle school language arts teacher, who intended to have her students write essays about the trash before it was cleared away by a well-meaning janitor.Water that was said to have been left in a cup Elvis Presley once drank from was sold for $455. The few tablespoons came from a plastic cup Presley sipped at a concert in North Carolina in 1977.A Coventry University student got £1.20 for a single cornflake.A man from Brisbane, Australia attempted to sell New Zealand at a starting price of $.01AUD. The price had risen to $3,000 before eBay closed the auction.One of the tunnel boring machines involved in the construction of the Channel Tunnel was auctioned on eBay in 2004.A man from Arizona sold an air guitar on eBay for $5.50.A group of four men from Australia auctioned themselves to spend the weekend with the promise of "beers, snags, good conversation and a hell of a lot of laughs" for AU$1,300Disney sold a retired Monorail Red (Mark IV Monorail) for $20,000The German Language Association sold the German language to call attention for the growing influence of Pidgin-English in modern GermanIn late November 2005, the original Hollywood sign was sold on eBay for $450,400.In February 2007, after Britney Spears shaved all of her hair off in a Los Angeles salon, it was listed on EBay for $1million USD before it was taken down after some considerable controversy.

Charity auctions

Using MissionFish as an arbiter, eBay allows sellers to donate a portion of their auction proceeds to a charity of the seller's choice. Some high profile charity auctions have been advertised on the eBay home page, and have raised large amounts of money in a short time. For example, a furniture manufacturer raised over $35,000 for Ronald McDonald House by auctioning off beds that had been signed by celebrities