private ebay account to business account help please!

lulugirl

Hi All, About 3 months ago I opened an ebay account to sell some new clothes I had.
Yesterday I changed this account to a business account as ebay kept asking me too. I understand that now I am liable for tax. Will this start from when I opened the ebay account & all the items I have sold? How do other ebayers keep a record of the purchases & sales for the tax form. Any help would be much appreciates as I am rather worried now that I will not be able to cope with this.

MissGivings_2

lulugirl wrote: »

Hi All, About 3 months ago I opened an ebay account to sell some new clothes I had.
Yesterday I changed this account to a business account as ebay kept asking me too. I understand that now I am liable for tax. Will this start from when I opened the ebay account & all the items I have sold? How do other ebayers keep a record of the purchases & sales for the tax form. Any help would be much appreciates as I am rather worried now that I will not be able to cope with this.

Here's a useful page from eBay help topics;

http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/policies/business.html

Oliver14

You're only liable for tax if you are a business not if ebay think you are. If you buy to sell you are and should declare this to the HMRC and you will pay tax (if you need to) from the day you started trading as a business You can still have an ebay business account and not be a business many people do.

lulugirl

Thanks for your swift response. So If I declare this to the HMRC I would only pay tax from the day I informed them of the business not from when I opened the ebay account?

macfly

lulugirl wrote: »

Thanks for your swift response. So If I declare this to the HMRC I would only pay tax from the day I informed them of the business not from when I opened the ebay account?

Read what he said again. You've missed the point.

lulugirl

Im just confused as to whether I would be seen as a business from the day I opened the ebay account or from when I informed the HMRC? My concern is I havent any receipts for the original clothes I listed .

macfly

Forget ebay for the moment - are you actually running a business? Do you buy purely to sell or are your sales personal possessions you no longer want? That's the bit you skimmed over.

lulugirl

macfly wrote: »

Forget ebay for the moment - are you actually running a business? Do you buy purely to sell or are your sales personal possessions you no longer want? That's the bit you skimmed over.

when I opened the ebay account it was purely to sell items I already had but I no longer wanted, but now im selling items that I have purchased to sell. That is why I changed the ebay account to a business one

macfly

The date HMRC want is the date you made your first purchase for business purposes. Open another ebay account if you want to sell any more personal, non business items.

lulugirl

Ok Yes I think i will need to open a seperate personal account & just keep the business one for selling new items. Im still not sure how im going to figure out the self assesment. Do they require all the paper work sent in or just the profit or loss figures?