ebay and benefits

joanne2008

I am on housing benefit and sell my daughters old clothes/ shoes and bit and bobs on Ebay, is this ok or not?

Thanks

healy

Yes that is ok, it is not ok if you were buying and selling and running a business.

Beepster

Healy,

I would just like to comment that while I am not knowledgeable in terms of benefits, surely there is a threshold in terms of the amount of profit a person is allowed to earn when buying and selling goods on Ebay for the purpose of making a profit?

While I understand someone claiming benefits should not also be earning a living at the same time, surely allowing someone to develop their entrepreneurial skills that could lead to that person coming off benefits would be something that is not frowned upon.

I have met a number of people who earn a good living simply by buying and selling goods on ebay.

Good luck Joanne.... hope the bids and coming in thick and fast for your goods!

Beeps

cw18

not sure of the full logistics of doing this while claiming, but if you do declare the income don't forget to deduct any costs (listing fees, final value fees, and PayPal fees) before stating what you've "earned".

soolin

Selling your own personal items though is not considered a business, in fact if you worked out how much you paid originally and the actual proceeds you are almost certainly making a loss.

ALIBOBSY

I agree, just like the tax office selling your own old goods is perfectly acceptable (as long as you don't get a large amount of capital eg for selling a car or house in which case you would need to declare it). If you started buying and selling as a business to make profit you would need to declare this to the tax and the dwp.

ali x

real1314

Selling 2nd hand goods at a lower price than you paid is never considered trading and is not considered as income for benefits or tax. (or at least it shouldn't be if the rules are followed correctly by those running the benefit).

The proceeds become capital, and if this ends up exceeding the limits, it has to be declared.

If you sell something at a profit, that could be considered trading, but for Tax you can (afaik) use your Capital Gains allowance. For benefits, it would in theory affect your income and might be treated as unearned or maybe earned income. Hard to say which but I'd suspect earned. You'd be likely to have a disregard for this on most benefits, ranging from £5 to £20 generally.

healy

Beepster wrote: »

Healy,

I would just like to comment that while I am not knowledgeable in terms of benefits, surely there is a threshold in terms of the amount of profit a person is allowed to earn when buying and selling goods on Ebay for the purpose of making a profit?

While I understand someone claiming benefits should not also be earning a living at the same time, surely allowing someone to develop their entrepreneurial skills that could lead to that person coming off benefits would be something that is not frowned upon.

I have met a number of people who earn a good living simply by buying and selling goods on ebay.

Good luck Joanne.... hope the bids and coming in thick and fast for your goods!

Beeps

Real has covered what I would have said in their post with regard to earnings disregards etc.