Help with Extracting Tax-Time Info from Paypal

[SDIceMan]

I had to file for a 6-month tax extension due to a family medical emergency that occurred in April. I'm working on my tax paperwork now, and was wondering if any of you had experience with extracting info from Paypal such as shipping fees etc.? I believe I can have Paypal send me an Excel spreadsheet of every 2015 transaction - which numbers will benefit me on my taxes and how do I extract them from that spreadsheet? Off the top of my head I'm thinking shipping fees and eBay fees. I'll try some Google research in the meantime, but I know many of you must have had to pull some numbers from your own Paypal back in April. Thanks!

 

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[cyberdan]

I do that every year. I have to go to certain area for download. For 2016 I will ask for Dec 2015 through Jan 2017 just to make sure I get everything. Be prepared to get 75% junk info. paypal has column after column of info you will never need for bookkeeping. I just go through and delete columns and only keep info I need. I just went to my raw download spreadsheet for paypal, these are all the column heads.

Date Time Time Zone Name Type Status Currency Gross Fee Net From Email Address To Email Address Transaction ID Counterparty Status Shipping Address Address Status Item Title Item ID Shipping and Handling Amount Insurance Amount Sales Tax Option 1 Name Option 1 Value Option 2 Name Option 2 Value Auction Site Buyer ID Item URL Closing Date Escrow Id Invoice Id Reference Txn ID Invoice Number Custom Number Receipt ID Balance Contact Phone Number

For each sale you will get one line of info: (here is one showing sell price, fee & net) (if sales tax is collected that will show also in it's own col.)
William Pxxxx Mobile Express Checkout Payment Received Completed USD 104.29 -3.32 100.97

Now when you buy something you will get at least 4 rows of info for one purchase: You have to carefully delete 3 or when you add the column it will be completely off.

USPS Debit Card Purchase Completed USD -21.29
PayPal Temporary Hold Removed USD 21.29
PayPal Temporary Hold Placed USD -21.29
USPS Authorization Completed USD -21.29

There are many more rows of info too that need to be accounted for.

What you should do now is just download one month to get an idea.

So hope that didn't scare you away from doing you own books. I try to be accurate and let paypal do a lot of the work. But, I still have paper printouts on every sale and purchase.

PS where are you at in SoCA?

 

[SDIceMan]

Thank you very much cyberdan. I was able to navigate through Paypal to request the spreadsheet you are referring to. Apparently it takes them a little while to generate it, then it will be ready for download. It sounds like I'll have some work to do to decipher everything but at least the majority of the info I need is there. I was living in San Diego until last year but I'm living in southern New Mexico now. Hopefully heading back west to settle in southwestern Arizona before the new year. Thanks again for pointing me in the right direction!

 

[smokeythecat]

What's a profit??

 

[huntsman53]

What's a profit??

I second that question! It seems that everything I sold on eBay in the last few years, eBay and PayPal together took almost 26% of everything sold which put me at a 10% to 15% loss range. What happened to eBay being the place where Moms and Pops could sell unwanted stuff/items and make some cool money??!! It is apparent that eBay and PayPal only want to take everyone including Moms and Pops to the Cleaners!


Frank

 

[bdsawyer]

How are eBay and PayPal taking 26%? My average is about 13-14% depending on how many international sales I have.

 

[trdhrdr007]

How are eBay and PayPal taking 26%? My average is about 13-14% depending on how many international sales I have.

I use 13% when figuring how much to sell an item for.