Members Who Insist On "Gift" Option?

What are members opinions on this "gift" option with paypal?
are we not trading?
Is this not cheating, and will the IRS
be interested in a $5 trade?
I'd be interested in members opinions.

Rod:

I've had a PayPal account since they first went online, but I admit that I don't use it a lot -- and that usually to send rather than receive.

I don't think IRS is the issue -- I think PayPal fees are the issue. If you "gift" me $5, it costs you $5 and I get $5.

If we're involved in commerce, there might be fees involved.

Maybe some other members are more knowledgeable than I...

Kirk

I prefer the "Payment Owed" option. It is still under the same "Personal" tab as the "Gift" option, and I don't think it results in the fees that are charged for outright commercial trade.

You have to do several hundred+ dollars in trade before the IRS begins to perk it's ears and pays attention ($750 is the limit I think)

As I understand it, (I stand to be corrected!) gift option is about avoiding fees, not tax. In the UK I believe it is perfectly above board to sell a few items, eg on ebay, without being required to pay tax on the earnings. That is if it is sales of private items, such as your spare stamps or uwanted birthday socks, not items you have bought for resale at profit.
Whether or not using gift option following a sale on SCF is "cheating", hmmm, I'm not sure... In one way it is not entirely honest, on the other, these are private sales amongst "friends", so does it really meet the criteria of a commercial transaction?
Sorry Rod - fudging the question totally and sitting squarely on the fence!

Not to de-rail Rod's question, but I've never seen this sequence of time stamps before.

Stamp gal posted 4 minutes earlier than Smauggie and I did -- yet our posts are listed first? Curious.

Rod: according to this page, the fee is 2.9% of the total plus 30 cents.
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webs...fees-outside

So, if I sent you $100, you'd get $96.80

KirkS

Thanks everyone,
stampgal, fence sitting is entirely OK :)
that's exactly what I wanted, members personal and honest opinion.
I feel the same way,
I originally felt that members should disclose that they wanted
to insist on gift option, and that I would not bother
joining in the auction, then thought perhaps
my concerns were not founded.
"avoiding fees" I find concerning.
but that's just me.

Thanks Kirk
I feel Vendors of auctions should disclose
their wish to receive "gift option" in future
not after the fact.

If you are paying for a SCF donation lot, it would be perfectly fine to use the gift option.

When you ask a payment for a sale with Paypal, you pay the Paypal fee. If you ask someone to use the gift option he is paying the Paypal fee. Paypal doesn't make gift, it gets his fee one way or the other. I start asking for gift option because other where doing it and on some occasion it compensate not to pay the paypal fee for the low return we get on selling on SCF. But like LDB1 does it should be stated in the auction or sale so there is no surprise when it's come to pay. Rod I replied to your email and when I wrote "low return" I was not thinking about you. Most here know that you bid generously on auctions and on many of my auctions you were the only bidder. Daniel

i never had the situation come up..if I pay someone I use my paypal account..and I suppose I accept the same !!

I cannot see anything negative about using the gift option, in fact it's a good feature of Paypal.
We are offering many items here via auctions and sales threads and many, nay most, are going at very reasonable prices. I like the idea of buying and selling on forums such as ours [as I have said many times].
Quite a number of times the final price or sale price [if not an auction] is quite low, between $1-$5. In these cases, and many above these amounts, the gift option is great. I rarely ask for it, most often I forget but many times it is used to send me money. I nearly always use it on lower amounts even if it is not asked for. I do it out of common courtesy to the seller who gets just a dollar or three for an item and loses 15%-20% on fees.
It makes sense.
If someone asked me to use the gift option for a small amount, I could never be offended. I would have done so anyway !

The buyer pays no fee or a very miniscule one. It's a win-win situation.

Londonbus1

The idea is, that if you use a credit card to make an ebay purchase, the receiver pays 2.9% plus paypal fees.
So for a 1.00 sale, I would end up with around .60 after fees.
The gift option makes you pay the credit card fee.
For sales of 5 or 10 $ it's not worth it to be paid by credit card, the seller loses to much.
now if you have funds in your account and you use the payment owed or gift option there is no charge for the process.

i really do not want to accept payment from a credit card..most people I deal with have a reserve in their paypal account....

I've requested gift a couple times and did not realize it indeed does cost the buyer thus no circumventing of fees as far as paypal is concerned. However I don't expect buyers of my items to get stuck with additional fees so I will no longer do that. Same note with some of the deals that buyers get here on SCF I think using the gift option is a nice gesture for the more than fair offerings .
Not sure how the IRS looks at paypal/ ebay but a couple years ago Canada revenue accesed all records and were red flagging anything above 30k per year in total sales for potential tax audits. Years ago before paypal I made slightly over that a couple years running with my fishing tackle but if ever audited they would have to take into consideration cost of business and allow all deductions and write offs so they would probably owe me in the long run. I don't see any problems and I don't believe any sellers here at least would argue over the few %.

If you get caught using gift for transactions, you may lose your PayPal account.
If you pay by gift and get stiffed by the seller, good luck getting help from PayPal because you just stiffed them. They will laugh at you.
Don't forget these forums are public. There have been warnings sent to CCF members about it. I then had requests for sales/auctions to be removed from public view that ask for the gift option. I will not do it. If you're man or woman enough to cheat PayPal, you need to be man or woman enough to accept the consequences.

Absolutely, positively, not true. PayPal balance transfer with gift option is free to both buyer and seller.