Have you made a sizeable profit reselling your Taylor Swift The Eras Tour tickets? The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) wants you to report it as taxable income.
The new tax rule results from the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, which lowered the threshold for declaring tax from at least $20,000 of earnings or over 200 transactions to $600.
For Taylor Swift ticket resellers, this means $600 or more in profit is now taxable. The average face value of Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour tickets ranges from $49 to $499 (excluding fees). VIP tickets cost more. Resale tickets, however, are two with three times more expensive, with one reseller earning $20,000 after selling four VIP tickets.
The new tax rule is not limited to resold Taylor Swift tickets. It also covers other online transactions for goods and services that meet the new threshold.
For example, if you have a side gig on Etsy or eBay and made a profit of more than $600, you will receive a 1099-K form, requiring you to report the income to the IRS.
Personal transactions like sharing meal costs or paying your roommate for household bills are not part of the new tax requirement.
The IRS was supposed to implement the $600 tax threshold last year but postponed the implementation to give both payment networks and online sellers sufficient time to prepare and familiarize themselves with the new tax rule.
The tax agency, however, recently announced that they’re pushing the implementation again to 2024. The agency did not disclose the exact date for introducing the new taxable threshold.
As of this writing, over $600 in earnings from reselling Taylor Swift tickets does not apply to the 2023 tax year. For 2024, the tax agency is planning a $5,000 threshold.
About Taylor Swift
The 33-year-old Pennsylvania native has been part of the cultural zeitgeist since her debut as a country singer in 2006. Her song, “Teardrops on My Guitar,” from her self-titled debut album, won several awards, including Song of the Year in the BMI Country Awards.
Swift transitioned from country to mainstream pop, winning several Grammy Awards, American Music Awards, and Billboard Music Awards. Time magazine also hailed the pop superstar as the 2023 “Person of the Year.”
In 2022, Taylor Swift announced “The Eras Tour,” the pop superstar’s sixth concert tour in her 17-year illustrious career. The world tour, which kicked off in Glendale, California, in March 2023, covers 151 shows across five continents.
Her songs revolve around friendships and romance, which she draws from her personal yet publicly documented relationships and feuds with other celebrities.
Economic Impact of The Eras Tour
The pop superstar is not only collecting awards left and right and releasing waves of chart-topping songs but also boosting the economy with her The Eras Tour.
The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia reported that although there is a decline in leisure traveling, the state had an uptick in hotel revenue in May due to Swift’s shows in the city.
The impact of Swift’s The Eras Tour is also seen in other states such as Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, Denver, and Cincinnati.
Swift’s unprecedented impact on the economy doesn’t stop there, as research from QuestionPro shows concertgoers’ willingness to spend more than their initial budget. Fans paid approximately $1,300 per show, including for the tickets, food, and travel.
QuestionPro also suggested the tour could generate over $5 billion —more than the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of 50 countries. The U.S. Travel Association, however, believes that it would exceed $10 billion.
The tour also had unintended economic impacts when workplaces ground to a halt the day tickets went on sale in November 2022 because fans encountered issues and errors on Ticketmaster’s website while trying to purchase tickets. Others had to wait in long queues that lasted for hours.
Taylor Swift Is Now A Billionaire
Aside from boosting the economy, Taylor Swift is also raking in an enormous amount of money this year.
Bloomberg reports that Swift’s net worth is $1.1 billion, joining the ranks of other music artist billionaires like Rihanna and Jay-Z. But, unlike her colleagues, Swift earned her billionaire status solely through music earnings alone.
According to Forbes, Swift is earning $10 million and $13 million per show on her tour. The movie version of her concert made over $250 million, surpassing its $15 million production budget.
In addition to her successful concert tour, Swift is expected to earn more as reports claim that the now-billionaire singer will earn over $100 million from streaming revenues on Spotify alone.
Resellers Must Still File Their Taxes
Despite the IRS pushing the implementation of the $600 tax rule to next year, those who made a significant profit are still required to report it. CashApp, Paypal, or Venmo will issue the Form 1099-K to resellers who meet the threshold.