Selling £23k in personal effects to go on Personal Self Assessement?

solidpro

Hi Everyone

My wife and I are company directors of our small business. Our income is each up to the personal threshold of £50k, taken roughly £13k in wages and £37k in dividends each year.

During 2024 we'd decided to downsize, mainly me selling off lots of old vintage electronics I'd collected over the last 20 years. All on selling on ebay, and minus fees came to about £23k for the year post April 6th. We used my wife's ebay account and it went into a standalone Starling bank account in my wife's name (really just for simplicity at the time).

Our personal tax year will end on the 5th April and we're wondering what we do about this £23k 'income'. Generally I lost money given what I'd paid for it all over the years and generally stuff like this is a wasting asset - mainly because electronics tend to go bad over time.

My concern is that it will push me or my wife into an upper tax bracket... on stuff that we'd bought then sold much later at a loss. It was not a business.

Does anyone have any advice what to do?

Thanks

Nomunnofun1

solidpro said:

Hi Everyone

My wife and I are company directors of our small business. Our income is each up to the personal threshold of £50k, taken roughly £13k in wages and £37k in dividends each year.

During 2024 we'd decided to downsize, mainly me selling off lots of old vintage electronics I'd collected over the last 20 years. All on selling on ebay, and minus fees came to about £23k for the year post April 6th. We used my wife's ebay account and it went into a standalone Starling bank account in my wife's name (really just for simplicity at the time).

Our personal tax year will end on the 5th April and we're wondering what we do about this £23k 'income'. Generally I lost money given what I'd paid for it all over the years and generally stuff like this is a wasting asset - mainly because electronics tend to go bad over time.

My concern is that it will push me or my wife into an upper tax bracket... on stuff that we'd bought then sold much later at a loss. It was not a business.

Does anyone have any advice what to do?

Thanks

Why do you believe that you have declare this ‘income’ ? 

Even if it could be considered some kind of trade, which it isn’t, you have made a loss.

Bookworm105

given you use the term wasting asset, it implies you have at least a basic inclining that such money is not income it is capital.
Read the CGT rules regarding sale of personal possessions
Personal possessions and Capital Gains Tax 2024 (HS293) - GOV.UK

solidpro

So just get on with my life and forget about it? I just kinda knew that owning electronics, old or new were considered wasting because almost everything in that category ends up worth nothing or almost nothing.

poseidon1

solidpro said:

So just get on with my life and forget about it? I just kinda knew that owning electronics, old or new were considered wasting because almost everything in that category ends up worth nothing or almost nothing.

OP the link below may ( or may not ) offer you some reassurance with regard to your query.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/no-tax-changes-for-online-sellers#:~:text=As has always been the,expenses in any tax year

I suppose it depends if ebay does submit a report of your activity to HMRC, and if so whether HMRC then choose to raise a query thereon. 

I suppose forget about it ( for the reasons stated by others ) unless HMRC do come knocking.

Jeremy535897

One option you have is to disclose on the white space on your wife's return the amount of the sales, the fact that they relate to your long term hobby, were not bought to sell at a profit, are wasting assets and lost money anyway.

penners324

We're they bought to sell on?

If not no need to report to hmrc

Jeremy535897

penners324 said:

We're they bought to sell on?

If not no need to report to hmrc

No there is not, but as HMRC are apparently receiving data from Ebay, I would suggest pre-empting the possible enquiry has merit.

Dazed_and_C0nfused

Jeremy535897 said:

One option you have is to disclose on the white space on your wife's return the amount of the sales, the fact that they relate to your long term hobby, were not bought to sell at a profit, are wasting assets and lost money anyway.

But does information in the white space box get ready anymore now most returns are filed online?

It isn't going to cause any harm but I'm not sure it would change anything really.

Jeremy535897

Dazed_and_C0nfused said:

Jeremy535897 said:

One option you have is to disclose on the white space on your wife's return the amount of the sales, the fact that they relate to your long term hobby, were not bought to sell at a profit, are wasting assets and lost money anyway.

But does information in the white space box get ready anymore now most returns are filed online?

It isn't going to cause any harm but I'm not sure it would change anything really.

It would put them a bit on the back foot if they opened an investigation without reading it.