ebay to request NI numbers from sellers

RedImp_2

I’m sure they’re not going to vigorously pursue someone who’s sold £1200 worth of stuff in a year but I’m guessing there may be people who several £’000s worth of stuff whilst purporting to be a private seller.

soolin

I'm bumping this as a reminder as this topic keeps cropping up.

Langerhan

RedImp_2 said:

I’m sure they’re not going to vigorously pursue someone who’s sold £1200 worth of stuff in a year but I’m guessing there may be people who several £’000s worth of stuff whilst purporting to be a private seller.

Exactly this. HMRC don't have the resources to pursue most of the tax evasion that gets reported - they'll be looking for people who are selling £100,000 of "as new" car parts a year while claiming not to be trading, not someone selling some clothes for £200, some old audio equipment for £700 and some retro designer clothes for £400. The latter will get reported but won't even be looked at.

Hoenir

Langerhan said:

RedImp_2 said:

I’m sure they’re not going to vigorously pursue someone who’s sold £1200 worth of stuff in a year but I’m guessing there may be people who several £’000s worth of stuff whilst purporting to be a private seller.

Exactly this. HMRC don't have the resources to pursue most of the tax evasion that gets reported - they'll be looking for people who are selling £100,000 of "as new" car parts a year while claiming not to be trading, not someone selling some clothes for £200, some old audio equipment for £700 and some retro designer clothes for £400. The latter will get reported but won't even be looked at.

Until it transpires they own a second property and drive an expensive motor vehicle. Joining the dots using technology gets easier and easier.  

Spoonie_Turtle

Hoenir said:

Langerhan said:

RedImp_2 said:

I’m sure they’re not going to vigorously pursue someone who’s sold £1200 worth of stuff in a year but I’m guessing there may be people who several £’000s worth of stuff whilst purporting to be a private seller.

Exactly this. HMRC don't have the resources to pursue most of the tax evasion that gets reported - they'll be looking for people who are selling £100,000 of "as new" car parts a year while claiming not to be trading, not someone selling some clothes for £200, some old audio equipment for £700 and some retro designer clothes for £400. The latter will get reported but won't even be looked at.

Until it transpires they own a second property and drive an expensive motor vehicle. Joining the dots using technology gets easier and easier.  

Well those are hardly going to be funded by the £1300 gross received in a year from their eBay sales.

forgotmyname

Spoonie_Turtle said:

Well those are hardly going to be funded by the £1300 gross received in a year from their eBay sales.

Well they could not be bothered with the Dormant Company trading on Ebay with many hundreds of listings and feedback of over 70,000

in just 14 months of having that account.  Probably too much effort chasing them when they can get some pensioner who failed to declare
they bought something and sold it for a profit taking them over their tax limit.

Spoonie_Turtle

forgotmyname said:

Spoonie_Turtle said:

Well those are hardly going to be funded by the £1300 gross received in a year from their eBay sales.

Well they could not be bothered with the Dormant Company trading on Ebay with many hundreds of listings and feedback of over 70,000

in just 14 months of having that account.  Probably too much effort chasing them when they can get some pensioner who failed to declare
they bought something and sold it for a profit taking them over their tax limit.

Is this the definite outcome of a case you've reported to HMRC?  How would you know, just from their eBay account still being up and active, that behind the scenes HMRC aren't investigating, unless HMRC have told you? 
Indeed, unless they're registered as a private account which is a red flag, how do you know that the business isn't already compliant with their tax and accounting responsibilities?

Otherwise I fail to see how you could assert that HMRC haven't acted, considering the automatic reports AFAIK won't actually start until next January …

TimeLord1

As I already said' in a previous thread, it will be the banks it's paid into that monitor incoming and outgoing and they already have your National Insurance numbers. So they're already checking if the accounts are being misused or if its non business account and has regular incoming payments from online selling platforms then they won't want to be associated with harbouring offending account's breaking the law so will most likely write to inform you of their review on your account and most likely close it down in a time scale.

(We believe you're using this account as a trading business account, not personal usage and we need to close it)

But if you have a business bank account then you would registered ® 

Geminigirl24

Not happy with ebay asking for NI numbers. However I already pay tax on a private pension and use my tax allowance. My partner does not use his tax allowance at all.  Can I just change the name on my ebay account to his and avoid paying tax ? We use the same bank account.

soolin

Geminigirl24 said:

Not happy with ebay asking for NI numbers. However I already pay tax on a private pension and use my tax allowance. My partner does not use his tax allowance at all.  Can I just change the name on my ebay account to his and avoid paying tax ? We use the same bank account.

I don't quite follow?

Nothing has changed re tax, if you are running a business or acting as a sole trader on ebay or any other platform then you should already be declaring any income over the trading allowance. The fact that they are now making it easier to link online sales with tax returns via NI hasn't changed the tax rules at all. 

If you are just selling your own unwanted items then there wasn't a tax liability and still isn't.