Ebay sales over £1000

XzavierWalnut

I expect to have sold approximately £2,300 worth of hand made items on Ebay and Etsy by the end of the tax year, so obviously I am over the limit.
As I live on 2 small pensions, savings and investments I do not earn enough to go over my personal tax allowance. When adding on the online sales I am still below my tax allowance.
Do I still have to advise the tax office of my online sales, or will they work out that I am not eligible for tax on the online sales?
TIA

DullGreyGuy

XzavierWalnut said:

I expect to have sold approximately £2,300 worth of hand made items on Ebay and Etsy by the end of the tax year, so obviously I am over the limit.
As I live on 2 small pensions, savings and investments I do not earn enough to go over my personal tax allowance. When adding on the online sales I am still below my tax allowance.
Do I still have to advise the tax office of my online sales, or will they work out that I am not eligible for tax on the online sales?
TIA

You are legally obliged to register as self employed once your annual sales are due to hit £1,000 turnover (not profit) in a tax year. 

Self assessment form isnt hard to complete and if you are still below your personal allowance it will just be a 30 minute job once a year as long as you are keeping good records. 

The penalties are fairly steep for failing to register on time and apply even if there would have been no additional taxes due. 

caprikid1

Are these items you bought for resale ? If not then you probably have not made a profit.

IE Clothes bought for £200 , Sold for £40...

XzavierWalnut

caprikid1 said:

Are these items you bought for resale ? If not then you probably have not made a profit.

IE Clothes bought for £200 , Sold for £40...

No, I make stained glass.

soolin

Yes you must register and should have done the moment your turnover exceeded £1000. As has bene mentioned the penalty for not registering can be high, including penalties for each day that a return has not been submitted.

Do a simple cash basis set of accounts, all money in (including postage charged) on one side less all payments out (including postage paid on other. Those two figures are entered onto the self assessment and the net figure will then be subject to Income tax. However if you have unused personal allowances they are offset against the profit meaning that if your total income for the tax year from all pensions, including state pension, investments , taxable benefits etc there would be no tax to pay. 

I suspect sellers making things to sell are going to be an easy target for HMRC, perhaps not in the first year or so when they are overwhelmed, but perhaps later down the line. 

dinosaur66

follow soolin advice

it will be a worry off your mind

just go to your ebay

then orders

then custom 

then 6th april 2004  to date and write down the figure that comes up or wait until april 5th 2025 and do it then

then as you have been advised by soolin a simple cash basis accounts will do 

write down and keep in a small accounts book

column reads

takings/

outgoings ie -10% fee plus 20%vat /36p item fee sold/damage in post costs not the profit bit /stationary cost to post/postage cost/price cost for you to make /decorate your glass/operating fee about a £10 in your case

then add all those figures up each month /do it over 12 months-

write down your total takings/

write down your total outgoings

leaves your profit or loss

all hmrc want to see is 1 figure for takings

1 figure for costs

none of the other things i told you to write down go on your tax return/  they are for your own bookeeping

must keep the books for 6 years

thats it

dinosaur66

sorry watching the tv

that is meant to be 6th april 2024

and operataing fee is a new fee introduced and will just be approx £10 for whole year and not monthly as my post implies /

 might be less because i forgot this was 2k between 2 platforms

Spoonie_Turtle

soolin said:

Yes you must register and should have done the moment your turnover exceeded £1000. As has bene mentioned the penalty for not registering can be high, including penalties for each day that a return has not been submitted.

I agree with the rest of your comment, but they have until the self-assessment deadline after the end of the tax year in which they first went over the £1,000 to register
https://www.litrg.org.uk/tax-nic/how-tax-collected/self-assessment-and-tax-returns/registering-self-assessment

OP just to check, is that £2,300 all within the current tax year?  If it's the total ever, spread out over multiple years, then you only need to declare when you earn over £1,000 within a tax year.

XzavierWalnut

Spoonie_Turtle said:

soolin said:

Yes you must register and should have done the moment your turnover exceeded £1000. As has bene mentioned the penalty for not registering can be high, including penalties for each day that a return has not been submitted.

I agree with the rest of your comment, but they have until the self-assessment deadline after the end of the tax year in which they first went over the £1,000 to register
https://www.litrg.org.uk/tax-nic/how-tax-collected/self-assessment-and-tax-returns/registering-self-assessment

OP just to check, is that £2,300 all within the current tax year?  If it's the total ever, spread out over multiple years, then you only need to declare when you earn over £1,000 within a tax year.

The £2,300 is what I have sold since January 2024, so it's a guesstimate for the financial year. After checking I have sold £1,210 in the current financial year.

GadgetGuru

I've sold probably over £10k - but it's because I sold my gaming computer, and then all the external SSD drives and my action camera collection etc. So all accumulated from a lot of higher value items, even though I sold small bits and pieces as well - around 94 items over the year. Need to stop my gadget buying addiction!!

For example, one external SSD drive sold for £700 alone, the computer was £3k, other drives for around the £300-400 mark, my GoPro for £300, Insta360 X4 for £400, and the rest just smaller bits and pieces with lower values. 

While these are all personal items sold under my private eBay account, I have not completed any self assessment as none of it was purchased with the intention of selling, and none was sold at a profit either, I'm concerned if I'm contacted by HMRC since I do not have receipts for everything.....Ive never sold multiples of items, just one off items. Pretty much cleared out my whole office!
Do I need to do anything at this point?

soolin

GadgetGuru said:

I've sold probably over £10k - but it's because I sold my gaming computer, and then all the external SSD drives and my action camera collection etc. So all accumulated from a lot of higher value items, even though I sold small bits and pieces as well - around 94 items over the year. Need to stop my gadget buying addiction!!

For example, one external SSD drive sold for £700 alone, the computer was £3k, other drives for around the £300-400 mark, my GoPro for £300, Insta360 X4 for £400, and the rest just smaller bits and pieces with lower values. 

While these are all personal items sold under my private eBay account, I have not completed any self assessment as none of it was purchased with the intention of selling, and none was sold at a profit either, I'm concerned if I'm contacted by HMRC since I do not have receipts for everything.....Ive never sold multiples of items, just one off items. Pretty much cleared out my whole office!
Do I need to do anything at this point?

I would do nothing as there’s no action required on your part.