What I didn't list yet is that it's of critical importance whether or not losses (see above, we're looking at the other side of the medal first) are somehow connected to how that person spends their free time. And boy what a connection we have here. It's his god damn hobby. His primary hobby. He does it from home, too.
But what if our beloved finfance authority wants to imply our private person is a businessman, a professional reseller? Well, they are compelled to do so, after all that means more taxes for our beloved Germany!
And that is the problem we have here. It's so classic it's almost funny (except for.. you know, all of us magic players). Amidst of all the commercial sellers and all the businesses selling stuff as their primary and secondary occupation there dare to be private persons selling their stuff on sites like ebay and mkm. Because it is their hobby. And with their hobby they may or may not have laid the foundation for said sites (and yes, I am roughly translating the website i linked before... since ages. Because they are right. I just compare that to this particular case).
So when should our tax authorities say that this buying and selling is commercial? Numbers. Volume. Sales. Feedback. 5/5 stars times fourthousand.
This is what all of this boils down to. Here we are. At the focal point of this case, where shit goes down. And this is where you, dear TCGDiscounter, prove that you are a fucking shithead who doesn't understand a Healing Salve's worth of what he is actually doing business with. And you're so dumb, you even prove it yourself!
He also buys cards for speculating, so he wants to make profit out of the cards he thinks are available too cheap.
Everyone who plays Magic does that. It's how we have fun.
This kind of behavior now has nothing to do with the game itself and is by no means necessary for being able to play.
Ask players. It has to do with the game itself, because you want to trade up in a trading card game. It is necessary for being able to play – just because you want everyone to buy cards from you doesn't mean everyone will buy cards from you. It might be an impossible thought for you, but making money isn't everything. We love to trade. We love to make a profit while trading, but not because we get €€€ back. But because we love the trade.
This last week Tobias profile showed more than 150 (!) trades that month, so he had more than 5 per day, that is pretty much.
That is nothing. Ever been in a game store? I don't think so. My sides actually hurt from laughing at this point. THIS IS PRETTY MUCH? I could make 150 trades in one evening at FNM in Nürnberg. And I'm not even a good trader!
All his items have an advertisement. If you check cards from DTK, they show "Fast and Fair! Fullstock from Theros to Takir"
The reason why you think this is advertisement might be the reason your business is running like shit. Oh, and because of some certain recent events.
Why is someone offering a full stock and sealed products? How can he sell several full stocks of the same series at once?
You know nothing, Jon TCGDiscount. Do you know what Magic Online is? Do you know what WotC offers there? If you have a full set on MtGO (and only if it is the full set!) you can have it delivered in paper to your home. HUGE shipping costs to Germany, by the way. You can't possibly not know this, right? Is this some kind of attempt to convince the stupid masses on the MAGIC SUBREDDIT? WE ALL KNOW! And one word and every judge knows this, too.
Product is still sealed because it arrives that way at home. It is convinient to ship it like that. And here is where we delve deeper into the costs of playing magic and what numbers mean... Wait. Let's just make a comedic relief, because this shit was way too serious up until now!
Why is he buying low and reselling high? Why is he speculating? Because he is trying to make some profit .
Nooooooooooooo! :D
And that’s why we see him clearly for what he is, a professional reseller.
I can see clearly now, the rain has gone... :D :D Sorry, but even I am at a loss for words right now. And you can see clearly by now how much I loooove talking.
Comic relief end.
Numbers, Magic and you. We have determined that is of crucial importance to be able to somehow determine the meaning of the numbers of sales, costs, profits. I have already told you (or the general audience, hello audience!) what „150 trades a month“ mean.
Back to Magic. Let's start (continue?) with MtGO: You need to get a full set to do a redemption. Here is the redemption policy. It costs 30$ to ship to Germany alone. To get a full set, you need to buy the cards or win them while playing. To play and be able to win, you need to enter tournaments. To enter tournaments, you need to pay in tickets. Tickets you buy with money.
That means to win a full set you need to pay money, then you need to pay money to have said set shipped to you.
How much you win is skill and luck based. But you, dear TCGDiscount, make one crucial mistake that will cost you both game and match: You look at the mkm sales alone. You forget (or ignore. Yep, you ignore) the costs for Tobias to get these sets. He gets them as a byproduct of doing what he loves, playing the game. And he pays for that activity. Those cards come as a price. And they come at a price. (Here we have a huge problem: Is magic luck based or not? Is it tax free? What about the ruling that poker is not luck based and you have to pay taxes on your winnings? Who ruled that? Bochum! What a surprise! ;) Let's ignore that, please.)
He gets them as his hobby, in his free time, back at home, he may even lose money doing so. It's not his job. It's how he spends his time. Selling them is how he spends his free time, it's a good alternative or diversification to trading at or selling to the store (for store credits for other cards, for example). It stays in the hobby. He doesn't pay his rent with that, he doesn't buy food or clothes with that, he doesn't buy a car or TV with that money.
So, how much does he actually play and sell?
Someone mentioned the Bierdeckelfall somewhere. That dude had something like 320.000 pieces and made 18-66k per year. Volume, not profit. he claimed his profit was 0.
I have a total volume of 1200 € on mkm over the last 2 years, with about 1000 cards sold. I am a very casual player / trader / seller. It is really easy to go to 2000 cards. Especially if they are cheap and bulk (it is common practice to sell "rares" and other cards that aren't worth much as a bulk/package. These can easily be 100 cards at once or more!).
My profit should be about 100€ maximum. It is easy to accidentally make profit. You buy some cards, because you want to play them. They increase in value because more people want to play them, you sell them because you got sick of them or they are worth too much for you to keep and you could have 2-3 new decks and bam, profit. You said so yourself:
Let me explain: If a player buys cards for his deck, having a good time the next tournament and decides to sell the cards the next day it’s his decision. If the price got higher now, the player makes some wins in selling, it’s perfect for the player. We don’t care about such cases. Every player should be able to buy cards for his collection or sell cards from his collection on platforms like mkm.
But you don't seem to draw the line correctly. At all. And intentionally. Because it suits you. I am generously overlooking the blatant flaw in your argument here, too. Well, I am not. But I am not going to deconstruct this completely: Players should be able to sell their collections. But to whom? Shops? You? Other players? And how should they get these collections in the first place? Opening product only, or trading, selling buying, … expanding? You don't want that. Because they'd get so big that they'd be bigger than the biggest shops, right? They'd be
acting like a professional reseller while “hiding” behind a private account in which he does not give his true name and address is – in our opinion - dishonest as well as illegal. Especially when Tobias is thus able to withhold customer rights like the right of rescission (Widerrufsrecht) from an online transaction.
RIGHT? THIS IS YOUR CORE ARGUMENT, RIGHT THERE. Look at it, sitting there, naked, all alone. Ugly. Hideous. Wrong. Dangerous.
This is how shops look like:
https://www.magickartenmarkt.de/Users/Tarmogoyf (237,695 cards offered at the moment, boosters ("packs" in english from an edition with 15 random cards, factory sealed. One rare, 3 uncommons, 11 commons guaranteed), sleeves to protect your valuable cards etc)
https://www.magickartenmarkt.de/Users/STARDUSTSHOP (170,480 cards offered! Packs, sleeves, folders, displays (36 packs each.)
https://www.magickartenmarkt.de/Users/MagicTradeHouseNo1 (756,393 cards offered at the moment, comics, sleeves, memorabilia)