eBay Zero Selling Fees until 15 April - WOW !

soolin

22laptops said:

Ha ha, I still have my sense of humour after all the misery selling puts me through... and will still continue to buy more tat because that's what collectors do. Collectors don't necessarily buy things for enjoyment!  a lot of stuff 110% owes you and if you think of the cost of the space it takes up the daft thing is that it ended up costing you a fortune.
Collecting doesn't completely make sense, I've had a load of boxes in the attic for over 20 years full of things I don't even like (don't ask me why I bought it) but you buy it, hold on to it, try to sell it again & again and again till the point that you've put a lot of work into it and its taken up space at fairs & bootsales so its costing money for that, and all the time, effort, travel, sometimes I put some of it into general auctions too and it wont sell, so that's cost another few quid, and it ends up that a box load of junk that originally cost £20 has become like a black hole of expenses and there's maybe 20 other boxes like that... and still you try again... and again to sell it or just leave it in the attic when you need the space it's taking up.
And come to think of it, some of this stuff I would be making a loss on it (if I sold it) because it's never gone up in value. I remember what I paid for some of it and I won't even manage to get my money back which is why I'm determined to get a reasonable amount of money back at least. Postage is adding to the original cost loss too if you bought it online. 
If you gave it to a charity shop or someone else they would have the same problem unless you find the actual person who would want your obscure or boring thingamajig but even then, if they're a cheapskate that won't pay anywhere near what you're asking the chances are they won't look after it either and you think to yourself, I'd rather they don't have it for all the trouble I've gone through keeping it safe over the years.
Eventually you learn not to do silly things but you never realise at the time, so I dare say you start doing other silly things all over again without realising.

I don't want to continually re hash the profit/loss business/private discussion which has been done so many times that I have lost count.  However if you buy something you want and then re sell it later it doesn't need to make a profit- if you start talking about getting your money back on things you bought and making a profit then you start to stray into trading.

Look at Royal Doulton ladies, at the peak some years ago they were probably costing £150 a piece, people bought them, even paying in instalments as ornaments believing they would retain their value and could be sold if needed later- or even to leave as an inheritance. They now go for around £3-£5 a piece. If our mums and grandmothers bought them because they liked them and enjoyed them then yes they have lost value- but they were enjoyed and if they have to be charity shopped then so be it- the enjoyment they had was still there. They don't need to make a 'reasonable amount of money ' back- they weren't bought for that purpose.

I bought stuff for my own collections, i bought at specialist conventions and from dealers because I wanted the things at the time and I enjoyed them. Then they might end up in folders or boxes in a loft for years and now might be worth just pennies - but I haven't lost anything. Some of the things worked out to be very good sellers indeed , some are worthless - and for my own peace of mind it is sometimes easier to take them to a charity shop and forget about them. I had my enjoyment and having stuff sitting in boxes deteriorating is not good for me.

soolin

24febstarter said:

I'm assuming this freebie deal is a one-off and have been attempting to sell one year's worth of stuff in the space of a few weeks.

Slightly off tack, I did wonder about the definition of a 'personal possession'. Is it something you have owned for (a) 12 years, (b) 12 months, (c) 12 days or (d) 12 hours? Some other period? Or is it completely irrelevant, given that 'trading' involves profit and loss and many items may sell at their acquisition cost or lower?

For example, thanks to RM pricing changes I now have a folder full of postage stamps. How can anybody prove I wasn't intending to use them for postage at the time of purchase?

You are overthinking this , if you want definitive answers talk to HMRC, this is a topic that has already been discussed countless times.

24febstarter

I think it's intended to be ambiguous. Words like 'income' and 'profit' are regularly muddled so often it's not clear where the allowances/boundaries are.

As per your Royal Doulton example, many 'collectable' things tend to lose value over time, just as an ancient proof of purchase will have long been lost. Whether or not they were 'enjoyed' is irrelevant. You might 'enjoy' the income from renting out a second home but would never be asked to pay tax on the income from selling it. Nor would you pay tax on the 'income' from an old car you upgraded. So the notion most people should pay tax on selling their own stuff is a bit flaky. Likewise the 30-item nonsense, since small things inevitably take up less space than big ones.

The important thing is to make sure you keep your own records, since any automated Ebay reporting is essentially limited.

soolin

24febstarter said:

I think it's intended to be ambiguous. Words like 'income' and 'profit' are regularly muddled so often it's not clear where the allowances/boundaries are.

As per your Royal Doulton example, many 'collectable' things tend to lose value over time, just as an ancient proof of purchase will have long been lost. Whether or not they were 'enjoyed' is irrelevant. You might 'enjoy' the income from renting out a second home but would never be asked to pay tax on the income from selling it. Nor would you pay tax on the 'income' from an old car you upgraded. So the notion most people should pay tax on selling their own stuff is a bit flaky. Likewise the 30-item nonsense, since small things inevitably take up less space than big ones.

The important thing is to make sure you keep your own records, since any automated Ebay reporting is essentially limited.

I think you still may need to check your understanding with HMRC if you need clarification as you seem quite determined to interpret things in a very confusing manner.

Your property example for instance would show a tax liability, admittedly CGT not IT - but it is taxable none the less, and I think you are getting muddled with the use of the word 'enjoyed' I enjoy the money I get from my self employment- but it is still taxable. To start with perhaps a better understanding of the terms 'income' and 'profit' might be useful- as they mean entirely different things.

Just an example, the 30 limit number on private sales has nothing to do with tax liability, only reporting. I am also completely lost with the mention of 'size' of items, do you have a belief that the size of an item has anything to do with its taxable status? I've been around for ages, thought I'd heard everything but that one is a new one on me, so perhaps I am misunderstanding the point.

HMRC used to run very useful web seminars for people to explain basic taxation, they used to be aimed at small sole traders and people thinking of starting to trade  - if they still run them it might be worth signing up to perhaps give you a better basic understanding around the rules, if only to reassure yourself that you are compliant. 

24febstarter

I'm aware of the various different allowances available, as in the case of property. That was entirely my point, your 'enjoyment' of your assets is a complete irrelevance. You can still enjoy owning a second home and would definitely NOT expect to pay tax on the income from selling it. Once you're wealthy completely different asset classes, rules and reliefs apply.

I made the point about size deliberately too. Volume should be irrelevant. You could sell 30 items that are small, like coins or stamps or thimbles, and reach the threshold for reporting. But people are more likely to have large collections of things that are small. After all, not many people have the garage space for 30 sports cars, much as we might like to collect those things..

My tax affairs are fine but the system itself has some obvious anomalies and inconsistencies.

soolin

24febstarter said:

I'm aware of the various different allowances available, as in the case of property. That was entirely my point, your 'enjoyment' of your assets is a complete irrelevance. You can still enjoy owning a second home and would definitely NOT expect to pay tax on the income from selling it. Once you're wealthy completely different asset classes, rules and reliefs apply.

I made the point about size deliberately too. Volume should be irrelevant. You could sell 30 items that are small, like coins or stamps or thimbles, and reach the threshold for reporting. But people are more likely to have large collections of things that are small. After all, not many people have the garage space for 30 sports cars, much as we might like to collect those things..

My tax affairs are fine but the system itself has some obvious anomalies and inconsistencies.

Re the house, you do pay tax both on your income when you receive money from renting it out and also on the profit when it is sold. I still think you are misunderstanding the difference in terms between income and profit.

I also still disagree that size of an item can have any relevance to income tax. As has been said time and time again the tax rules have not changed. therefore if you buy to sell or make things to sell and exceed the £1000 'allowance' then you would need to declare yourself as a business to HMRC. If you do not understand what constitutes business selling then please refer to the HMRC guidelines which can explain it much better than I can.

I will say it again, online sites like ebay or Vinted are reporting sales automatically to HMRC now , in the past it was randomly done or at the request of HMRC. HOWEVER there are NO changes to the guidelines as to what constitutes a business or a private seller, nothing has changed.

My explanation is obviously not really being understood so I might have to leave it to others to try and help you.

soolin

Just a reminder that tomorrow is the last day for listing under this scheme.

It will be interesting to see if those of us lucky enough to have had this offer will get any of the 'usual' FVF offers going forward.

I also wonder if we'll ever see another offer as good as this one!

24febstarter

@soolin

Thanks for your help but you are misunderstanding (or not reading) my point, which was that income from sales is treated differently depending on the asset and circumstances. Selling an item you previously bought should not result in 'income'. But Ebay's mandatory reporting will be completely ignorant of whatever profit or loss there may have been as it's not recorded.

I didn't say there is any correlation between item size and income tax. You introduced that concept. It is specifically the count of items that matters. If you're clearing the loft and find widgets to sell, the chances are you'll reach your 30 item threshold quicker if they happen to be small. I was pointing out that for reporting purposes the item count is irrelevant. Certainly less so than the total value.

And the 30-item 'limit' IS fairly new, as well as being totally arbitrary. At least to me.

As I pointed out on another thread, intent is hard to prove either way. You may have acquired possessions with absolutely no intention of selling but done it anyway. Hence my tongue-in-cheek original query about how long you'd have to own something before it counted as a 'personal possession'? It's almost certainly longer than 12 days and possibly more than 12 weeks, but who can confidently say? ;-)

It shouldn't be so difficult to defend the rules and probably wouldn't be if they weren't so inconsistent.

22laptops

soolin said:

22laptops said:

Ha ha, I still have my sense of humour after all the misery selling puts me through... and will still continue to buy more tat because that's what collectors do. Collectors don't necessarily buy things for enjoyment!  a lot of stuff 110% owes you and if you think of the cost of the space it takes up the daft thing is that it ended up costing you a fortune.
Collecting doesn't completely make sense, I've had a load of boxes in the attic for over 20 years full of things I don't even like (don't ask me why I bought it) but you buy it, hold on to it, try to sell it again & again and again till the point that you've put a lot of work into it and its taken up space at fairs & bootsales so its costing money for that, and all the time, effort, travel, sometimes I put some of it into general auctions too and it wont sell, so that's cost another few quid, and it ends up that a box load of junk that originally cost £20 has become like a black hole of expenses and there's maybe 20 other boxes like that... and still you try again... and again to sell it or just leave it in the attic when you need the space it's taking up.
And come to think of it, some of this stuff I would be making a loss on it (if I sold it) because it's never gone up in value. I remember what I paid for some of it and I won't even manage to get my money back which is why I'm determined to get a reasonable amount of money back at least. Postage is adding to the original cost loss too if you bought it online. 
If you gave it to a charity shop or someone else they would have the same problem unless you find the actual person who would want your obscure or boring thingamajig but even then, if they're a cheapskate that won't pay anywhere near what you're asking the chances are they won't look after it either and you think to yourself, I'd rather they don't have it for all the trouble I've gone through keeping it safe over the years.
Eventually you learn not to do silly things but you never realise at the time, so I dare say you start doing other silly things all over again without realising.

I don't want to continually re hash the profit/loss business/private discussion which has been done so many times that I have lost count.  However if you buy something you want and then re sell it later it doesn't need to make a profit- if you start talking about getting your money back on things you bought and making a profit then you start to stray into trading.

Look at Royal Doulton ladies, at the peak some years ago they were probably costing £150 a piece, people bought them, even paying in instalments as ornaments believing they would retain their value and could be sold if needed later- or even to leave as an inheritance. They now go for around £3-£5 a piece. If our mums and grandmothers bought them because they liked them and enjoyed them then yes they have lost value- but they were enjoyed and if they have to be charity shopped then so be it- the enjoyment they had was still there. They don't need to make a 'reasonable amount of money ' back- they weren't bought for that purpose.

I bought stuff for my own collections, i bought at specialist conventions and from dealers because I wanted the things at the time and I enjoyed them. Then they might end up in folders or boxes in a loft for years and now might be worth just pennies - but I haven't lost anything. Some of the things worked out to be very good sellers indeed , some are worthless - and for my own peace of mind it is sometimes easier to take them to a charity shop and forget about them. I had my enjoyment and having stuff sitting in boxes deteriorating is not good for me.

Actually I was getting a bit annoyed (no offence) that you keep mentioning the profit/loss /enjoyment thing again in the reply you gave before to me which was the only reason I felt I had to work it into what I was saying, and it seems you've come back with it again but accused me of going on about it. I know what you say, I also know eBay say the opposite. But there you go.

I don't mean to be rude but you seem very pro-taxation, like some others on here, even if people don't owe anything you seem to want to scare them and not question it. I think I read somewhere you were a wannabe taxman/woman/person or had something to do with them. Well, as long as your saving people money, that's the aim of the forum I must get back to loosing more money on eBay .

Anyway, so yes I get it, if somethings I own have turned into a never ending black hole of expenses I should not take the mentality to self tax any profit I may make in my other auctions to 'break even' as it were and just get rid of them. Funny, if only real taxes were saved that wisely, but as I say, I idiotically keep trying to claw back at least something from my misfortune.
I sort of agree with that because I'd rather spend my profit on something else that's not an endless waste of time & money and in the meanwhile try to figure out what the problem actually is with the stuff that I'm stuck with.

So if I get back to this discussion before anyone accuses me of going off for one comment, fees or no fees I just can't stand eBay anymore because they're only capable of selling a tiny percentage of things and they don't make any effort to actually help you shift things quickly, it's just the same useless system that doesn't work.
Meanwhile everyone with lots of mates and families have been shifting things quickly for all these years because they've all been organising shill bidding I very much suspect. So much for being "loyal to eBay all these years" as they say.

22laptops

Nothing sold again, one minute there's customers like a gushing tap overfilling my sink and the next minute it's like someone's turned off the tap completely. I grow more & more suspicious of eBay, especially so many items with 0 views. Actually the other day I caught them not even displaying my description on one thing but it was still all there in the revision page when I thought the text had been accidentally deleted, I hit revise and still no description showed up.
Just shows you that you have to keep an eye on everything. Probably some invisible code error got into the text.