2026 tax year
Antiques or coin dealer taxes and deductions
The 28% collectibles rate is not yours. It caps the tax an investor pays on art, coins, stamps or antiques held over a year. But your pieces are stock in trade, not capital assets, so you pay ordinary rates and self-employment tax on top.
That makes the dealer-or-investor line the most consequential fact about your return, and it is decided on the facts rather than by anything you file. Buying to resell, holding briefly, advertising, doing it continuously, all point to dealing. Someone can be both: a dealer in the shop stock and an investor in a personal collection held separately, provided the two are genuinely kept apart. Stock is not deductible when bought, only when sold, so a strong buying year with a slow selling year is taxed as if it went well.
The rest of the antiques or coin dealer deduction list
Ordinary and necessary business expenses, deductible in full in the year you pay them, provided they are genuinely for the business:
- Stock, as cost of goods sold
- Shop rent
- Liability insurance
- Marketing
- Travel
- Software subscriptions
- Staff wages
- Security and alarm
Worth knowing
Dealers pay ordinary rates plus self-employment tax; the 28% collectibles ceiling belongs to investors and never applies to stock.
That is what is specific to this trade. The larger deductions are the universal ones, see the full checklist.
What each deduction is worth to you
On $100,000 of profit with no state income tax, $1,000 deducted saves $305, 30.5%, because it comes off self-employment tax and income tax together:
| Net profit | Saved per $1,000 deducted | Effective |
|---|---|---|
| $40,000 | $231 | 23.1% |
| $100,000 | $305 | 30.5% |
| $200,000 | $297 | 29.7% |
The last row is worth less than the one above it, and that is not a mistake: past the Social Security wage base the self-employment part of the saving drops from 15.3% to 2.9%, and the higher income-tax bracket does not quite make up the difference. A deduction is worth most in the middle.
Add a state income tax and every row rises. The 1099 calculator applies that layer.
Where this comes from
The rules on this page that are specific rather than general are cited below. Follow a link to read the provision itself rather than taking our word for it:
- Property held primarily for sale to customers is not a capital asset, so no collectibles rateIRC 1221(a)(1)
- The 28% maximum rate on collectibles applies to long-term capital gain, and is a ceiling rather than a flat rateIRC 1(h)(4)-(5)
Related
- Full deductions checklist
- Every profession
- 1099 taxes by state
- Quarterly payments
- Is an S-corp worth it?
- Local income tax
General information about how these deductions work, not tax advice. Whether a particular expense is deductible for you depends on facts this page does not have, check with a tax professional before claiming anything listed here.