Self Assessment for HMRC?

soolin

MetaPhysical said:

@soolin Thanks,  Ok, so say you make  and sell stuff on Vinted, Etsy, Ebay and other platforms.  You total the sales, expenses and profit of each individually and total them all together - is that what you mean? You enter these three numbers amalgamating all your selling platforms on your SA as sales/expenses and profit?  Would they not want to see those numbers on each platform individually?  Of course, I have comprehensive numbers detailing the trading numbers on each were I asked for them.

I am familiar with doing a personal SA.  Simple stuff.  When you register as a sole trader, how many more pages are there on the SA to fill out?  Just another page with those three boxes?

HMRC don't need a breakdown of the sites you use , they only need total income and total costs.  You keep your own records , I do use a simple code to indicate which items are Etsy, ebay or face to face/local selling groups etc add it all up- one figure is then entered for total income and one for all expenses. Keep your paperworlk for at least 6 tax years in case you are ever audited- which is rare.

The SA boxes can run to several pages with a lot of responses being 'N/A' you can have more than one Self employment- as I do, and when you start your tax return online it asks how many separate small businesses you need pages for. I trade as a sole trader in my own name in all my freelance and selling work and just fill out the relevant sections for each.

MetaPhysical

@soolin. Thanks again.
So, this rule kicked in this year that eBay et al will start to report sales to HMRC.   So that will be sales from Jan 1st? What about sales before then? Will they report just that, the sales, or will it include charges and postage as well? in either case, "starting from January"  does not marry up with the tax year. When will they report this to HMRC?  I imagine for the first time tens of thousands of people will start to do a SA.

soolin

MetaPhysical said:

@soolin. Thanks again.
So, this rule kicked in this year that eBay et al will start to report sales to HMRC.   So that will be sales from Jan 1st? What about sales before then? Will they report just that, the sales, or will it include charges and postage as well? in either case, "starting from January"  does not marry up with the tax year. When will they report this to HMRC?  I imagine for the first time tens of thousands of people will start to do a SA.

Firstly you need to check the official ebay notification as the date reporting starts depends on when your account was registered- I think there's a link on one of the newer threads to that announcement- if not look back through your ebay messages.

AS per the original announcement though quoted already, all income is being reported to HMRC, so that includes postage that ebay collect on your behalf. Obviously ebay charges are not reported as they are only concerned with income not expenses. Ebay will be reporting the gross amount, so if you sell an item for £10  with £4 postage that will equate to £14 in your report (assuming you sell enough to reach the limit)

There shouldn't be thousands of new Self assessments being undertaken- unless there are business sellers who truly believe this will catch them out and are no longer prepared to risk continuing to defraud HMRC.. I suspect those who have been running unreported businesses may well decide to carry on !!!!!! normal and keep their fingers crossed they won't be caught.

MetaPhysical

@soolin. Thanks again,
So in your example, eBay just report the total gross sales? They will amalgamate a bigger number across all my sales and report that amalgamated number along the lines of "Metaphysical made £6000 on his sales". That's it?  Just the gross number?

To continue the £14 example.
 
Raw item cost to me £3
Charges  from ebay £3
Other costs £1
Postage £4

Leaving me with a profit of £2

So it is up to me to justify, were I investigated, that my profit that I get taxed on was £2 by showing them my records if asked? It is initially taken on trust that you report fairly and accurately with the implied threat of investigation?

I have spreadsheets with all this data available.  I would need to subtract some of my own private gumpf that I sold on the same eBay account.