LEWISTON – Bill Cartmel found work on eBay. Since 1998, he’s sold records and antiques from his College Street home and made a full-time job of it. Someone noticed.

For the second year in a row, he’s being flown down to Washington, D.C., by the company for the annual “United States of eBay” fly-in – a huge lobbying push where Cartmel and 22 sellers like him scour the Capitol, talking taxes and online issues.

He’ll meet with U.S. Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe. Thursday is the big day.

“eBay is kind of watching out for itself and us, as well,” said Cartmel, who worked for Maine Public Radio from 1986 to 1998.

On his agenda: The unfairness of an IRS proposal to get companies like eBay to report out small-business sales and the difficulty of collecting taxes from people across the country.

Through his eBay store, Billstuff, Cartmel sells thousands of LPs, books and Maine finds, like a leather-bound 1936 Bates College commencement program. He sells more wares off a personal Web site.

“We just bought Maine Public Radio’s entire record collection last year; that was over 10,000 pieces,” he said.

He ships 60 to 70 items a week. Sales go around the world.

Cartmel opposes the idea of a remote state sales tax, which would require having to, for instance, charge the going California tax on a record sale to someone in California, then forward that tax to that state.

In a one-man shop, that would get complicated, fast.

“The idea would be to collect taxes from all of the thousands of taxing districts all over the country,” Cartmel said.

He does collect taxes from Maine buyers and forwards that money to Augusta.

Another hot-button issue for him, Cartmel said, is an IRS recommendation that companies like eBay start reporting how much in sales small businesses like Billstuff are doing.

The intent is to get at companies that under-report. The problem, Cartmel said, is that the number eBay reports out would be incorrect. About 3 to 5 percent of his bidders don’t ultimately pay. Plus, he gives regular customers coupon codes for discounts at checkout.

Cartmel said he’d be OK with an entity like PayPal, which most of his customers use, reporting figures to the IRS. Those would be accurate.

About 1,500 people in Maine work full time selling items on eBay, but it’s largely solitary work. He said Tuesday he’s looking forward to getting to talk shop with the other sellers.

Last year, after the intensive trek all over the Capitol, “I had to soak my feet. We were all over the place,” he said.

The carrot this year, at the end of Thursday’s events: dinner at the Spy Museum.