I was digging thru a old box full of mother earth news that i have from the early seventies to the mid eighties,back befor they became a high gloss yuppie mag.But they will never come close to being the great mag countryside is. Anyway thier was a article on a barter fair they have in wash st. every year.Where people bring goods and services to barter they discourage the use of cash.The article even tells how to go about putting one on.My queston is does any one know if there are any barter fairs held today and if so where? Maybe we could talk countryside in to putting one on? Thankyou john

-- john hubbard (ghubbar@bellsouth.net), November 29, 2000

Answers

Yes, I'd like to know how to have one. We have 8 acres that would certainly support a barter fair. Does one need to have insurance or get licensing from the city??

Idaho Cher

-- Cher Rovang (fullcircle@nidlink.com), November 29, 2000.

I think the problem with the old barter fairs was that the fedgov IRS wanted their cut. They ruled barter was an income and ya gotta pay. Some states followed suit and claimed barters were a sale and they wanted sales tax, too. Nothing like government interference to ruin a good thing.

Bartering is still going in a big way, just by word of mouth and with trusted aquaintances.

-- Laura (gsend@hotmail.com), November 29, 2000.

There are several still held in WA each year during the summer months. Last time I checked I found their site on the net by searching for barter faire.

-- Marci (ajourend@libby.org), November 29, 2000.

There are a lot of barter fairs in the eastern Washington area. I have been to two or three, a big one in Northport, WA, and a little one in Bonners Ferry, ID. I don't know if they still have that one. The barter fairs are held in spring and fall. Lots of our friends go to them twice a year. There is a lot of trading, but you can't trade just any old thing. It really helps if you have tradable merchandise, such as garlic, meals, jewelry, etc. If you don't have anything to trade, they don't mind cash. The one in Bonner's Ferry was pretty clean, but the Northport barter fair was like a big drug party or something. I hear that there is also one in Tonasket, WA.

-- Rebekah (daniel1@itss.net), November 29, 2000.

Check out:

barterfair.org

for info. Also

planettonasket.com

or links to the ones in Tonasket (plus other links.)

-- sheepish (rborgo@gte.net), November 30, 2000.

I've never understood how the IRS thinks to collect on barter. I mean, the essence of barter is a trade - like value for like value. Who has to pay income and who claims the loss if I trade a $500 mower for a $500 set of tools? It comes down to giveing two fives for a ten - who got income and who didn't? Anybody got any clearing-up advice?

-- Soni (thomkilroy@hotmail.com), December 03, 2000.

You don't expect the government to figure out the barter system do you, when they can't even figure out how to ellect the president? It's like someone else said, keep it close with those you can trust. What "They" (Feds) don't know, won't hurt you.

-- Clare Baldwin (clare_baldwin@hotmail.com), December 03, 2000.

I used to live up in NE Washington and went to alot of barter faire's around their. There are one's in Tonasket (Spring and Fall), Northport (SPring and Fall), Usk, Bonners Ferry, priest lake area, there is also one outside of Republic,WA. There are a few I went to, but can't remember the names of the town, in central Idaho. The co-op in Collville would have posting of most of the faire's. I had a great time at these faire's.

-- Carl Solum (chefsolum@hotmail.com), February 24, 2001.

yea, theres a whole bunch of barter fairs goin on in washington state. and every so often they have barter fairs at spirit ridge. thats on the colville reservation near grand coulee dam. theres one comin up some time in september. its called "hemptronics". well anyways there is a whole bunch goin on there. thats all

-- ben dover (ben@dover.com), September 03, 2001.

I went to the Tonasket barter fair the year before last. It is held too late in the year, and the gate people were arrogant and rude. I was also (in a sence) lied to by the people in charge of the fair and would like to tell them what I think of them to their faces.

-- Rick Kimmerling (kimmerling@hotsprgs.net), January 23, 2002.

Soni, the IRS wants to tax because if you're a business doing this (as opposed to say trading babysitting for pie) is that not only are you taking business deductions (and not paying tax), you're doing business, and often these barter transactions have some money attached to make up the difference, and again, there is no tax on the deal, so the businesses doing this (and you could do more business this way than in the conventional way) are getting out of paying taxes twice.

A lot of so-called "side" businesses (people get into them just for deductions) avoid paying taxes this way, and because they don't report, income, they always look bad on paper, but are really doing well. They actually make money on the deductions, which isn't why one should be running a business.

Trading your mower for someone's tools (I am assuming both are used here) falls into the category of the babysitting for pie example. Orthodontic work (business deductions, ka-ching!) for construction work (again, business deductions, ka-ching!) is what they're looking at.

-- GT (nospam@nospam.com), January 23, 2002.

yeah barter faires are still around, they never went away, i went to Tonasket a few months ago, it was great, and yes barter faires do involve drugs, its part of the rainbow tribe tradition. go to one, you dont know what you are missing -archer

-- archer (misterblackjello@yahoo.com), January 25, 2002.