Ebay Private & Business account

davidian84

Im self employed selling on ebay and amazon with business accounts (not VAT Registered). Ive opened a personal account to sell my childhood toy/books/etc.

My question is should i keep under the £1740 and 30 items per year limit where ebay will report to HMRC. While im doing nothing wrong the idea of having my self assessment investigated and having to prove everything sounds a nightmare. Is it likely to happen.

Secondly is there a limit with which ebay will force me to business account, id imagine selling multiples and new items would trigger it.

soolin

davidian84 said:

Im self employed selling on ebay and amazon with business accounts (not VAT Registered). Ive opened a personal account to sell my childhood toy/books/etc.

My question is should i keep under the £1740 and 30 items per year limit where ebay will report to HMRC. While im doing nothing wrong the idea of having my self assessment investigated and having to prove everything sounds a nightmare. Is it likely to happen.

Secondly is there a limit with which ebay will force me to business account, id imagine selling multiples and new items would trigger it.

Many of us run businesses alongside truly private accounts, as long as your records are in order and nothing looks amiss there should be no problems. Incidentally the money amount and the limit of sales is an ‘or’ not an ‘and’ so you have to keep below both to avoid automatic notification. 

You might want to take a look at this thread to show how completely random forced upgrades to business accounts are

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6547693/ebay-sending-out-mass-emails-for-private-sellers-to-upgrade-to-business#latest

davidian84

soolin said:

davidian84 said:

Im self employed selling on ebay and amazon with business accounts (not VAT Registered). Ive opened a personal account to sell my childhood toy/books/etc.

My question is should i keep under the £1740 and 30 items per year limit where ebay will report to HMRC. While im doing nothing wrong the idea of having my self assessment investigated and having to prove everything sounds a nightmare. Is it likely to happen.

Secondly is there a limit with which ebay will force me to business account, id imagine selling multiples and new items would trigger it.

Many of us run businesses alongside truly private accounts, as long as your records are in order and nothing looks amiss there should be no problems. Incidentally the money amount and the limit of sales is an ‘or’ not an ‘and’ so you have to keep below both to avoid automatic notification. 

You might want to take a look at this thread to show how completely random forced upgrades to business accounts are

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6547693/ebay-sending-out-mass-emails-for-private-sellers-to-upgrade-to-business#latest

Fair enough. a couple of years ago i won a phone which i ended up selling on amazon and paying tax on profits because i couldnt be bothered with the effort,

LITRG

Hello. We are the Low Incomes Tax Reform Group (LITRG), part of the Chartered Institute of Taxation who are an educational charity. We are not part of HMRC or MSE. Although we can’t give individual advice, you might find our website information about the platform reporting rules and the EUR 2000/30 item exemption useful: https://www.litrg.org.uk/news/more-side-hustle-tax-help (in particular, see second FAQ). If you require further help, we recommend that you contact a tax adviser, HMRC or one of the tax charities where relevant. You can find more information about where to get help with tax here: https://www.litrg.org.uk/tax-nic/getting-help-tax. Thanks