Opinions on reporting "Business" sellers on private accounts?

BlueCow1975

Do you think people who are clearly trading under a private account as business sellers should be reported to Ebay and the HMRC? Just wanted to see what the general consensus of opinion is.

People buying the odd thing here and there to sell on for a profit now and again does not particularly bother me. However, I am tired of coming accross sellers on "private" accounts with well over 100 brand new items listed all on buy it now, with multiple quantities of said items. Highly unlikely that they are just having a clear out.

I am a very small scale "hobby" seller (I make around £500 profit annually on my business account and another £500 or so selling my used personal stuff on my private account. It pays for extra family treats!). Personally, I wanted to make sure I was above board and did want to risk getting caught out further down the line. It just grates on me the number of people out there that are getting away with it!

I suppose the 2 schools of thought on this are:

1) Ignore it, people are just making money on the side - wish them well and hope it does not bite them on the bum in the future OR
2) These sellers ought to be reported. Why should some of us have to pay our taxes and others just get away with not doing so.

What are peoples thoughts?

soolin

Like you I tend to overlook the smaller fiddlers as not worth the hassle of reporting. However I do sometimes report large obviously business sellers who are wrongly registered but usually only to ebay. I saw one the other day (I think in fact it was posted on here) with over 1000 new items listed who was registered as a private seller. That is really taking the mickey.

Incidentally, the new rules for June are suggesting that overseas sellers who are registered as a private seller will not be able to list more than 100 items a month that should get rid of a lot of the huge Far East sellers.

I see no reason why I should pay more taxes to make up for those who think it is acceptable to defraud HMRC.

jaynemaria

Personally speaking as long as I know that I am doing everything correct and am legal taxwise etc, I dont really care about anyone else, I know that this attitude is probably very selfish, but I know that there are so many people out there on ebay doing this that me reporting them wouldnt make much difference.

Would add though if it was an obvious business with multiple items I might report them to ebay, but wouldnt to the HMRC

DaveAshton

If it doesn't affect out business, they only get reported to ebay. If it does affect us, HMRC get notified as well.

There's a regular private-business in our main category, currently 9,281 auctions running, all 1-day, all sub-99p (so free to list). The sooner June gets here, the better.

masterbrown

Ebay have had their own their own software now for a while to check for non registered business sellers.

macfly

It's the reason why Greece is in the smelly stuff. Tax avoidance is a national sport.

soolin

macfly wrote: »

It's the reason why Greece is in the smelly stuff. Tax avoidance is a national sport.

Never mind, I reckon the UK tax payers pay Greece's share.

macfly

All EU taxpayers will be doing so for some time. It's why I get so annoyed with people who are keen to report to ebay, but not HMRC.
This behaviour costs us all money. We may not approve of how they spend it, but that is a different subject.

hermum

DaveAshton wrote: »

If it doesn't affect out business, they only get reported to ebay. If it does affect us, HMRC get notified as well.

There's a regular private-business in our main category, currently 9,281 auctions running, all 1-day, all sub-99p (so free to list). The sooner June gets here, the better.

How on earth do they go undetected by ebay?
What sort of turnover do they have?

YoJoJo

I started a thread on here a few weeks back asking for advice on how to report to eBay a person selling on a private account but who are blatantly business sellers. I got tons of answers (thanks again by the way everyone). However... the two different sellers are still selling the same items, on the same listing, even after reporting them twice to eBay

So I think my answer to the OP is. If you feel you need to report them, then do it, without feeling bad about it, but be prepared for eBay to do absolutely nothing about it.

I did not report them to HMRC because I had hoped eBay would remove their listing and the sellers would realise they need to register as a business with both eBay and the Taxman before re-listing again. I still have not reported them to HMRC as I can't quite bring myself to do that (yet!).

masterbrown

YoJoJo wrote: »

I started a thread on here a few weeks back asking for advice on how to report to eBay a person selling on a private account but who are blatantly business sellers. I got tons of answers (thanks again by the way everyone). However... the two different sellers are still selling the same items, on the same listing, even after reporting them twice to eBay

So I think my answer to the OP is. If you feel you need to report them, then do it, without feeling bad about it, but be prepared for eBay to do absolutely nothing about it.

I did not report them to HMRC because I had hoped eBay would remove their listing and the sellers would realise they need to register as a business with both eBay and the Taxman before re-listing again. I still have not reported them to HMRC as I can't quite bring myself to do that (yet!).

Ebay don't take reports from private individuals anymore because there was too many people just reporting people they don't like, so thats why nothings done, but as I said before they have their own measures in place :cool:
I've got a feeling that HMRC are'nt following up all reports regarding ebayers at the moment either, possibly for the same reason but can't be certain, they maybe just taking a while to investigate.
Incidentally theres a company that has a shop near us selling catalogue returns and they also sell on ebay but as a private seller, somebody reported them to HMRC but as they were registered as a business just not on ebay they actually gave the company the persons name and address :rotfl:suffice to say if you do report anyone I'd do it anonymously