e bay tax

soolin

Snooze_Control wrote:

:rotfl:

These threads make me laugh. Someone selling a few bits and bobs bought from a junk shop is fretting about paying the equivalent of the price of 2 Mars Bars in tax but yet the rest of us with 5-figure feedbacks just carry on regardless...

The tax man is not interested in Ebay. There are seller's out there with far higher sales than myself that have also been trading far longer than myself and they too have never heard a bean from them either.

Far too many goodie-goodies in this country. :rolleyes:

SC

Since most people are 'cuaght' by the Inland revenue due to anonymous tips, or anomolies in living income the actual amount you make is immaterial as to whether you will be caught or not.

Last year on the unmoderated board someone posted to say that whilst his £1000 a month 'business' had never been sussed by the Inland revenue his mother who sold a few craft items and made pennies was caught. His story about the hassle and upset his mother was going through I think spurred many a seller into suddenly remember to declare their income.

As for goody goody people on here, that is just as it ought to be. This is a money saving site, not a site for the criminally minded. There is a difference between saving money and breaking the law.

Soo

apprentice_tycoon

Snooze_Control wrote:

:rotfl:

These threads make me laugh. Someone selling a few bits and bobs bought from a junk shop is fretting about paying the equivalent of the price of 2 Mars Bars in tax but yet the rest of us with 5-figure feedbacks just carry on regardless...

The tax man is not interested in Ebay. There are seller's out there with far higher sales than myself that have also been trading far longer than myself and they too have never heard a bean from them either.

Far too many goodie-goodies in this country. :rolleyes:

SC

I can see how someone dealing with just cash might *think* that their income is un-traceable but surely you have money going into a bank account? that's in black and white and the banks don't 'lose' their records, they are there to be examined in detail, how do you think that you'll account for all your paypal payments? - and what about the method you use to buy your stock, that's probably traceable to you as well, I'm afraid that I wouldn't be able to sleep at night....

mrsb_5

blue_monkey wrote:

If you are buying things to sell on then yes, you need to register as a business and become self emplyed, at the end of eac finiancial year you'l have to 'self assess' and if you work as well, this will also be taken into consideration and you'll have to pay basic rate Tax & NI.

The business account thingon Paypal should not matter I guess but why do you have one if not running a business?

What kinds of things do you swap and how much is their value and why would you sell things you are swapping?

The Tax Man is now very interested in eBay due to the number of people selling. I think they will know those who are not registered for Tax and those that are - I guess they would readily be in touch with eBay for this reason and if you are making high value sales and are not registered then they surely would be interested. If you are selling odds and ends then they probably would not bother as you can sell your own things and not have to declare it. However, depends on what you are selling really and how often to determine on whether you are running a business. Should you be making a £100 a week plus then I am sure they would want to know - no-one can have that many personal effects they need to sell.

And yes, I am sure that if they wanted to know they would find out easily enough, they would only have to buy something. The other thing that you have to be wary off is competitors that are all too ready to grass you up to the tax man if you have better and cheaper things to sell than they have and more customers than them!!

Thanks for the reply, I am registered as self employed because of the childcare job I do but I guess I need to add to that that I sell on ebay too?

I swap mainly for cosmetic items which I then sell on, I sell them because the sole purpose of swapping them is to resell Most things I sell are for around £40, I wouldn't say I make £100 every week but some weeks I can make £50 and some weeks I can make £300

Think I'll give my local office a ring, I've just started keeping a spreadsheet of what I swap/buy, and total profit etc so hopefully that will be enough.

And I won't be contacting them to be a goody goody :rotfl:

Thanks again for the info

aeuerby

With regards Ebay and the Tax man, we had this come through on our Zen newsletter...

TAX NET
This year, the tax-man will be looking for e-Bay sellers and other online traders making a secondary income without declaring the cash. HM Revenue and Customs is organising a new intelligence team to identify the growing number of people who are trading illegally online and in the wider black economy. "We will be monitoring what is sold online in order to ensure that people are not running businesses," said a Revenue spokesman. "We need to remind people that tax applies to income from online buying and selling at sites like eBay, or providing any service for payment". Last year, a TV campaign targeting "dishonest" self-employed people prompted 100,000 calls to a hotline with information about traders suspected of operating without paying tax.
http://short.zen.co.uk/?id=6b1

Hope that helps someone!

windswept

lets all hope that the person on here who tax evades, who also doesn't mind neg f/b has a disgruntled customer who decides to tip off hmrc, oh, how we will all laugh! I hope it all gets splashed over the papers, too. they need to be stamping down really hard on all tax cheats. It's obvious who is running a business on ebay, what I don't understand is why ebay don't force people who are obviously in business to register as such, I have seen people with f/b in the thousands who are not registered as an ebay business, that's just crazy!

snowwhite_2

blue_monkey wrote:

You can get a weekly/monthly report from Paypal which shows how much you have been paid into your account - this is your income, your fees are an expense so don't get this wrong (as I did in the first few months and it took ages to sort out). You can export it into a spreadsheet so it takes little time to prepare and the figures are all in front of you.

I hope this helps.

How do you get the reports from paypal please?

cazmanian_minx

snowwhite wrote:

How do you get the reports from paypal please?

If you've not signed up to get monthly account statements and you've got a Business or Premier account:

Click My Account.
Click the Profile tab.
Click the Monthly Statements link in the Financial Information column.
Select the Yes button.
Click Save.

They then appear in a drop-down box at the top of the History page.

Caz

snowwhite_2

Thanks for that Caz. Wish I had done it before. I can see 3 months is there anywhere in history or anything where you can get more months from?

Helen

windswept

paypal only hold your monthly records for 3 months, it states as much in your account details.

Snooze_Control

soolin wrote:

Last year on the unmoderated board someone posted to say that whilst his £1000 a month 'business' had never been sussed by the Inland revenue his mother who sold a few craft items and made pennies was caught.

:rotfl:

What a load of rubbish! The IR won't even raise an eyebrow if you're not pulling £500 a month.

Scare-mongering at its best. Well you good little ebayers continue paying your taxes eh! :rotfl:

SC