[CLOSED] PC World new reserve and collect service - Bargains (merged threads)

payless

Those buying to sell on at a profit are trading - can't blame them - but this is therefore a business and as such profits ( after expenses - time is not an expense) should be declared , as taxable as income.

payless

Those buying to sell on at a profit are trading - can't blame them - but this is therefore a business and as such profits ( after expenses - time is not an expense) should be declared , as taxable as income.

redfox

I completely agree with you, payless.

I wonder how many do declare it :rolleyes:

lellie

yeah! let's shop the !!!!!es for tax evasion!

biglugs

I agree this is trading. But given the sums involved at the smaller scale (buy printer for £49.99, sell for £70) I reckon you'd be hard pushed to show that the person was making much taxable profit.

Once you deduct expenses like the cost of going to PC World to buy it, going to the PO to post it, cost of internet connection to reserve it, there isn't going to be much profit for the taxman to worry about. Different story for those people who order 20 Dell PCs at a time though.

But there is an interesting question about what is and what isn't trading. Before Xmas Toys R Us were selling Megabloks sets in a buy two get one free deal. We bought some for our boys, kept two and sold one on Ebay. As we got the item for nothing it was ours, but we didn't need it so we sold it. Does that constitute trading? Or could we say that we kept the free one, and sold the one we paid full price for - and since we sold it for less than the cost of one item in the shop can we deduct the loss from our tax return?

iwantitnow

biglugs wrote:

I agree this is trading. But given the sums involved at the smaller scale (buy printer for £49.99, sell for £70) I reckon you'd be hard pushed to show that the person was making much taxable profit.

Once you deduct expenses like the cost of going to PC World to buy it, going to the PO to post it, cost of internet connection to reserve it, there isn't going to be much profit for the taxman to worry about. Different story for those people who order 20 Dell PCs at a time though.

But there is an interesting question about what is and what isn't trading. Before Xmas Toys R Us were selling Megabloks sets in a buy two get one free deal. We bought some for our boys, kept two and sold one on Ebay. As we got the item for nothing it was ours, but we didn't need it so we sold it. Does that constitute trading? Or could we say that we kept the free one, and sold the one we paid full price for - and since we sold it for less than the cost of one item in the shop can we deduct the loss from our tax return?

What if your children sold it? Are they not tax exempt?

biglugs

Good point, but unfortunately my Ebay and Paypal accounts are in my name.

Poppy9

Payless is right you are trading. Don't forget if you want your travel expenses and home pc costs/printing/ utilities etc to be tax deductable you must inform your car and home insurer you are using them for business purposes.

There have been ruling under the sale of goods act regarding BOGOF where one is faulty. If I remember rightly the court took the view that you were not really getting one free but paying 1/2 price for both so that was the level of compensation due. I think it was about sofas that someone had bought which was a BOGOF and one had developed a fault. The store tried to say as it was free there was no compensation due because nothing had been paid for it. Based on this I assume the taxman would adopt a similar attitude in that nothing is free!

PS glad the greedy buggars can't sell their stuff on Ebay. This is not the spirit of this forum

dccarm

iwantitnow wrote:

What if your children sold it? Are they not tax exempt?

Children are not tax exempt. They get the same tax free allowances as the rest of us.

And if someone decides to buy a computer for resale, unless they are doing it very regularly, or is already involved in selling computers in some way, the Inland Revenue would be unlikely to deem it as a trade (or even care) - it'd be very difficult to prove the intentions of a one-off transaction.

tightus_wad

Taxman will be looking into anyone who SELLS more than 60 items per year on EBAY. EBAY have been asked to provide this info...