Paying Tax to HMRC for selling my own personal collection?

Tax_Slave

i have probably 2 to 3 years to live due to blood cancer. I have a large coin collection I have built up over the last 15 years inc Gold coins. I have taken the decision to dispose of the collection over the last two years so my wife doesn’t have to do it when I have gone. Sales last year were over £10k and this year to date come to £13k and 135 items sold. Now eBay are charging zero to sell I expect this total to climb even more as I sell more items.
i have no plans to declare anything with HMRC. All the items are from  personal collection and I many I have sold at a loss.
HMRC are interested in the person who sells say 10,000 T shirts in 12 months , makes £5 profit per shirt and declares zero for tax.

RFW

LITRG said:

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 your tax position when selling items and what the platforms might report to HMRC useful: https://www.litrg.org.uk/working/gig-economy/oecd-rules. 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.

That's a great resource. Lots of useful information on there and lots of misinformation corrected.

theoretica

My understanding is that selling personal items is not an income tax matter - however, CGT may apply on more valuable items even if the 'gain' is only through owning the thing for ages and inflation.  This is most familiar as an issue with second homes, but is not confined to them.

RFW

theoretica said:

My understanding is that selling personal items is not an income tax matter - however, CGT may apply on more valuable items even if the 'gain' is only through owning the thing for ages and inflation.  This is most familiar as an issue with second homes, but is not confined to them.

From what I can gather Capital Gains Tax kicks in on items over £6000 where a gain of over £3000 is made in the time you've owned it. I'm by no means an expert on it but it doesn't seem to be anything to worry about until you're taking £3000 for a single item.

PocketWatchMan

theoretica said:

My understanding is that selling personal items is not an income tax matter - however, CGT may apply on more valuable items even if the 'gain' is only through owning the thing for ages and inflation.  This is most familiar as an issue with second homes, but is not confined to them.

This is true in theory, however in practice if the HMRC claims that what you are selling is not a personal item and part of a trading income, then it becomes very much a taxable matter until the time you prove it isn't. If it costs you a large chunk of change, and /or you end up having to retain legal advice in order to prove your position, then unfortunately that's kinda just tough.