Selling eBay, Etsy or Vinted - reporting to HMRC

[Mike]

In the news and now in place

Martin Lewis website moneysavingexpert website has a explanation in place

Selling eBay, Etsy or Vinted or rent your home on Airbnb? Firms will now report your earnings to HMRC – so check if you need to pay tax

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2024/01/online-platforms-etsy-vinted-airbnb-report-hmrc/

 

Imagine it could effect quite a few members on here in various ways

Shouldn't effect selling etc on here as it's all one to one private sales, though imagine that there may be some effect on some websites etc that charge to sell

So what's the take on it all out there?

Any effect, any plans? is it a  gamechanger?  etc etc 

 

[Dobber]

I thought if you sell a collectible for any amount on any platform it wasn’t subject to tax? As an individual,not a business?

 

[Seano]

Here's the link to the HMRC guide on this:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/selling-online-and-paying-taxes/selling-online-and-paying-taxes-information-sheet?&utm_source=t.co_hmrcgovuk&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=online_sellers

It's not really all that helpful I feel. Lots of "If this is you then you may / may not be likely to be liable for tax"; no real clarity.

But I got involved with a broad thread on Twitter (yeah, I know, X) about this and I'd be interested if people feel this is a fair summary of what the guidance seems to say:

1. If you are selling your personal possessions, and doing it as a one off thing, you're 'probably' not liable for tax.

2. If you buy things for the purpose of selling them, then you are probably liable for tax.

3. If the income (not profit; income) that you turn over by selling online exceeds £1,000, you 'may' be liable for tax.

4. If your online selling income is below £1,000, then you 'may' not be liable for tax.

 

To be honest, I think it's all going to become part of the huge data set the government seem bent on developing. Palantir are taking on all of our NHS data (whole different topic of course). The government are legislating to have access to all the bank details for anyone receiving benefits of any kind, including pensions. All the bank details; not just how much you get via a specific benefit. And all of this online selling platform financial data could well be yet another area they feel they can use huge tech companies and/or AI to dig into and find unexpected uses for in the future, tax being just one of them.

[Mithras]

 I did flag this up all your rare 45's are then are taxed  @20%  after the first £1000 a year... values will drop ,banks are now asking for your social security number had this happen to me   ...all the work finding rare soul and you cant sell it??..the worst is that pensioners aka the wigan era people in there 70's with good tunes are having bank accounts looked at...new  bill in process from our great Tory Government ,and do not forget  20% on  USA purchases, sad reality at the best.

[Soul Shrews]

Maybe just keep the 45s until you die as I believe those lovely Tories are about to scrap "Inheritance tax" ?

Edited January 4 by Soul Shrews
spelling

[Philb]

Because we don’t pay enough tax in this country!!

[Seano]

24 minutes ago, Soul Shrews said:

Maybe just keep the 45s until you die as I believe those lovely Tories are about to scrap "Inheritance tax" ?

[Candiman]

It's one big grey area. OK, I'm selling some records from my collection, some of which I've had for years ("in the attic" so to speak, so not "trading"), and some of which I have bought for peanuts in local chazza or booter with a view for flipping for profit (effectively "trading"). How on earth is "the man" going to be able to tell the difference.

I think article said ebay et al will not have to pass on details if income is under 2000eur. And I can't believe the Government will have the resources to chase people selling close to that. They will go after the more obvious traders (repeat selling the same items regularly) with fairly significant income.

He says, hopefully.

 

Edited January 4 by Candiman
Spelling

[Modularman]

4 hours ago, Soul Shrews said:

Maybe just keep the 45s until you die as I believe those lovely Tories are about to scrap "Inheritance tax" ?

Won't affect the vast majority, inheritance tax only applies to the extremely wealthy, about 3.8% of the UK population, so sell away!

[Bbrich]

Whether you are subject to income tax on selling records depends on whether HMRC consider you are trading. They look at so called 'badges of trade' to decide...  this is helpful on this;

THE BADGES OF TRADE USED BY HMRC

The ‘badges of trade’ tests, are used by HMRC to help determine whether an activity is a trading activity (business). Careful consideration needs to be given when deciding if a hobby has become a taxable activity. If that happens, your trading activities will be subject to Income Tax and National Insurance. This post will provide basic information on badges of trade that HMRC use to establish if you are trading.

What are Badges of Trade?

HMRC will use some or all of the following nine criteria to assess if something is a trade:

Profit-seeking motive

The number of transactions

The nature of the asset

Existence of similar trading transactions or interests

Changes to the asset

The way sale is made

The source of finance

Time between purchase and sale

Method of acquisition

These ‘badges’ will not be present in every case and of those that are, some may point one way and some the other. The presence or absence of a particular badge is unlikely, by itself, to provide a conclusive answer to the question of whether or not there is a trade. The weight to be attached to each badge will depend on the precise circumstances.

There have been many cases over the years as the answer has not been clear cut, which in turn have helped to create the badges of trade list by the precedents set.

[Dobber]

That seems straight enough brich ,but I would imagine a collector selling a number of records per week with a view to selling the whole collection of possibly thousands is gonna look questionable to hmrc,unless you can prove that the records were purchased through your younger years and now selling cos your older? Profit or not,that wouldn’t be a business would it?

[Bbrich]

19 minutes ago, Dobber said:

That seems straight enough brich ,but I would imagine a collector selling a number of records per week with a view to selling the whole collection of possibly thousands is gonna look questionable to hmrc,unless you can prove that the records were purchased through your younger years and now selling cos your older? Profit or not,that wouldn’t be a business would it?

If such a collector was selling their collection that was all acquired some time ago you would have a good argument against 'trading' on the other hand someone regularly buying & selling, often selling some of the records after only holding them for a short period of time would struggle to argue 'not trading'. 

an important point that many dont appreciate is that HMRC may say they consider you are trading but if you disagree you can argue your case, even going to a tribunal (& subsequently appeal thro the courts...) and it would be decided on the balance of those 9 'badges of trade'. 

[Kathryn Magson]

Wouldn't it be good if the taxman chased after some of the REAL tax dodgers with the offshore accounts, instead of going after the little guy eking out his pension by selling a few tunes? (Michelle Mone is one that comes to mind - selling off all her assets so she can store the money in some Swiss bank ac now that she's finally been rumbled........)

[Tricky]

I’m not saying they won’t eventually come after everybody but realistically they are under the cosh with the workload they have now.

The article I read says they are taking on 27 staff for this!
At a guess I would surmise that by putting this out there they hope to get enough people to voluntarily self assess and coin it in through fear.If you think about just Ebay,how many people make over £1000.

Just have to go back to selling at do’s.

[Mike]

48 minutes ago, Tricky said:

I’m not saying they won’t eventually come after everybody but realistically they are under the cosh with the workload they have now.

The article I read says they are taking on 27 staff for this!
At a guess I would surmise that by putting this out there they hope to get enough people to voluntarily self assess and coin it in through fear.If you think about just Ebay,how many people make over £1000.

Just have to go back to selling at do’s.

thing is to me is that they (the HMRC) (or indeed yourself) don't have to do anything

it's the firms who have to report it as per below

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2024/01/online-platforms-etsy-vinted-airbnb-report-hmrc/

If all you're doing is selling goods online, firms will ONLY pass on data to HMRC automatically if you're selling 30 or more items a year OR have total earnings over the equivalent of €2,000 (currently around £1,700) (a) – so if you're doing a lot less than that, it isn't an issue.

-------------------------

once they got your info passed onto them, then it won't be that hard for them to automatically follow it up would it?

 

Edited January 5 by Mike
last bit

[Amitwiirly]

good luck to the bootleggers who sell hundreds all the time on ebay,it may curtail their business

[Frankie Crocker]

Government continues to insert itself into everyones’ lives but HMRC won’t get far on this wheeze. eBay users could just open and close multiple accounts or use family members incognito. Cash sales from person to person will increase - some would welcome the revival of sales boxes at soul nights. Trading records for records may help some collectors. Trading records for valuable goods might help somebody - swap Don Gardner for a second-hand car anyone? Long term collectors could start selling off their wares earlier than planned, gradually rather than all at once. There’s plenty of ways of avoiding scrutiny so I wouldn’t worry too much at present.

[Mace]

Slightly off-topic, but also worth knowing is the following came into force on January 1st......more than 25 International transactions via your digital payment provider (Paypal/Online banking etc) during a 3 month span may trigger further investigation to ensure correct customs values are being applied by sellers sending packages abroad......
Cash is going folks, and all the loose ends are being tied up beforehand.....

https://taxation-customs.ec.europa.eu/taxation-1/central-electronic-system-payment-information-cesop_en?fbclid=IwAR1xhKxlTsN4mS4ZJjy4xLtiomCHp5VOl8bSG4AVdqdOf_zK3nSnvVx0CBc

 

[davidwapples]

So that means values of all items sold for cash at soul nights will be 20 percent cheaper then