Letter From HMRC Re: Ebay Account

jobbingmusician

SURELY the OP must be a troll? Turning over £45k a year and it had never occurred to them to protect themselves by sending accounts to HMRC? Sorry, but I find it difficult to believe that anyone is that stupid.

SeduLOUs

jobbingmusician wrote: »

SURELY the OP must be a troll? Turning over £45k a year and it had never occurred to them to protect themselves by sending accounts to HMRC? Sorry, but I find it difficult to believe that anyone is that stupid.

It's got absolutely nothing to do with 'protecting' yourself, and everything to do with the fact that you have a legal obligation to declare business income (regardless of whether you end up needing to pay tax on it).

Flyonthewall

jobbingmusician wrote: »

SURELY the OP must be a troll? Turning over £45k a year and it had never occurred to them to protect themselves by sending accounts to HMRC? Sorry, but I find it difficult to believe that anyone is that stupid.

You don't spend much time on the internet do you...

I've seen far far more stupid things, which is quite sad but anyhow.

The reason has nothing to do with protection. You send accounts for tax purposes to follow the law which says you need to do that as a business. The issue is that they don't see themselves as a business. Largely because they're only coming out with £5K a year in this case which isn't much and below the personal tax threshold.

Usually it's because, regardless of amount, people have their own ideas about what a business is. Mostly involving having staff or an office or shop or only selling new goods, not used. If that's what they believe and they're not doing that they don't consider themselves a business. As they don't think they're a business they don't think to contact HMRC or send them accounts. Why would they? It'd be silly and a waste of time as far as they're concerned.

The issue is, plain and simply, lack of knowledge and understanding.

listonosz

Flyonthewall wrote: »

I understood your other post and how it all works, but not all sellers that appear to be from the UK on ebay are actually from the UK, which is why I asked and all you've done is pretty much repeat what you said before. No doubt there are UK sellers doing that, but perhaps not as many as it first appears which is maybe why it continues to happen.

It's not racist at all. In what way could that possibly be racist? It's a fact that China are known for producing fakes and they have different laws. They produce a lot of genuine things too that are perfectly legal for us to sell here. If you think I'm being racist stating that then you're being racist too for making a big deal out of things coming from China..

You started the whole China thing and stated it wasn't right which is your opinion whereas I stated facts so if you're going to start down that path you're not going to make yourself look good.

Laws and standards vary around the world and ebay is a massive site. For that reason it makes it difficult for ebay to act on everything.

They also take numerous things into consideration. So if a high rated seller with little-no negatives probably isn't going to vanish overnight based on a few reports when hundreds or even thousands of people are happy with their purchase. Ebay aren't experts in any items, they never see the item sent out and they must be aware of competition reporting people to get rid of them, plus ebay are a business and get money for the fees. So it's not as straightforward as them looking at an item after a report and going "oh yeah, fake, ban".

So regardless of where items are coming from originally and how legal they are, I'm not sure you realise how much time and cost would have to go into it to look fully into every single report they get and act upon it.

I'm not completely defending ebay, they do let some really obviously bad buyers/sellers keep going (longer than they should), but I do understand why these things do still happen as it's just not possible for them to completely combat the issue. Plus not all of them are illegal despite what you may think.

"Ahh, so we're talking about China? lol." That was the mildly racist comment I was referring to.
Anyhow our conversation has ran its course, Happy Christmas.

Flyonthewall

listonosz wrote: »

"Ahh, so we're talking about China? lol." That was the mildly racist comment I was referring to.
Anyhow our conversation has ran its course, Happy Christmas.

That's called a question. I didn't realise we were talking about China and that makes a difference (because, as I already said, different laws and standards). In what way can that possibly be racist? Maybe you should look up what racist means. Asking what country you're talking about is not racist.

MacMickster

makeyourdaddyproud wrote: »

If you are prepared to throw in the towel on a neat little £600 per month work from home earner then it is best that you don't formalise any business idea in future.

£5k out of £45k profit is actually quite good if you consider eBay is a giant marketplace with umpteen competitors in every category driving margins down.

What is wrong with scaling up volume? 4X the volume and you have £20k (although a faint whiff of diminishing returns may materialise). I would definitely persist with your selling idea but seen as you already closed accounts, you are now USCWAP.

On the tax issue: if you created some summary accounts and filled in a SE form you would have paid no tax on that £5k after your allowance was taken into account. Ebay fees are 10% - hardly opportunity destroying?

Oh dear...

You do realise that if you even double the turnover then the OP would exceed the VAT registration threshold, having to charge VAT on all sales?

This could ruin a small business trading with extremely small margins.

If there are people out there who genuinely don't realise that they are running a business when they have a £45K turnover, could there be some with a turnover in excess of the £82K VAT registration threshold? If so, they could find themselves in a whole heap of bother with the VAT man.

getmore4less

I think some protest too much,

as a collector wanting to trade there are plenty of places deal with other serous genuine collectors.

Ebay/auctions are just a place you might get more of those that will overpay quicker.

Kynthia

Lots of people fall foul of tax. Many think that because they don't sell much or because they don't make much profit they don't need to declare their income, especially if they wouldn't have to pay tax if they did such as the OP. We see it with landlords all the time that think tgat because the rent only covers the mortgage they're fine, not knowing they still need to declare it (or that the capital element of the mortgage repayment isn't an allowable expense). Tax confuses people as one poster on here who sells items for profits thinks they're exempt from income tax because the item they sell is exempt from capital gains tax. I'd guess most individuals aren't deliberately evading tax, they just don't think they're in-scope for most of it because PAYE means most of us are remote from it.

listonosz

Flyonthewall wrote: »

That's called a question. I didn't realise we were talking about China and that makes a difference (because, as I already said, different laws and standards). In what way can that possibly be racist? Maybe you should look up what racist means. Asking what country you're talking about is not racist.

I am just interested why you felt the need to use the term "Ahh so" when referring to China.
Maybe its a generational thing but I can remember when comedians would use this term to be derogatory to Asians.

Flyonthewall

listonosz wrote: »

I am just interested why you felt the need to use the term "Ahh so" when referring to China.
Maybe its a generational thing but I can remember when comedians would use this term to be derogatory to Asians.

As in realisation of what you were talking about. Ahh, so you mean that! Oh right, we're talking about that!

I have never ever heard that term used in any other way and I'm really confused as to what it could possibly mean in any derogatory way.

I did put "ahh, so" not "ahh so" if that makes any difference? I would have thought it obvious from how I wrote it that it was said in realisation of what were talking about anyway. It'd be a weird sentence otherwise if it were to mean anything else wouldn't it?

I've said ah/ahh, so to many things in realisation and no one has ever questioned it...I've used the term for many years. Never once thought anyone could ever take it any other way.