Do Charity Listings On Ebay Affect My Tax Quota?

90PLCE

I understand that I have a £1000 allowance selling on eBay before I'm liable to pay tax. Also, that I have a 30 sold listings limit (per year?) before being flagged up for tax scrutiny.

My main question is this: If I sell to declutter, giving 100% of proceeds to a charity via the eBay checkout system and using "eBay Simple Delivery" postage (meaning that absolutely NO sales and postage money is received by me at all), will the figures of these sales (both money amount and sold listings amount) negatively affect my £1000 allowance and 30 sold listings amount?

I do need to sell some things to boost my income but I also want to support certain charities - and I've PLENTY of small, very sellable items to dispose of. I've delivered stuff to local charity shops but have gotten cheesed off with the response/treatment by some staff who lack basic manners and behave as though I'm dumping unwanted rubbish in their shops.

I've tried to get an answer from the eBay charities dept but they're US based and won't comment UK tax laws.

vacheron

You are not taxed on selling your personal posessions (decluttering) on eBay, even if it exceeds £1000. This is regardless of if you keep the proceeds or donate them to charity.

The £1000 is a "trading" allowance meaning you are buying or making things with the express intention of reselling them for profit. This is the figure which cannot exceed £1000.

90PLCE

Thanks, that clarifies something that I'd not properly understood/realised. I'm figuring that if everything I sell is used, by default HMRC surely considers them as personal possessions being decluttered / sold at a loss.

That leaves the matter of eBay's 30 sold listings limit: when you reach that limit, does anyone know if HMRC takes an interest and scrutinises my sales/turnover? I just want a simple life.

vacheron

All the 30 items (or £1,740) per year limit means is that eBay are then required to supply this info to HMRC, it doesn't mean they will necessarily show any interest or take any action. 

Selling used makes it more likely they will consider things as personal possessions, but not guaranteed. Many people make plenty of money buying and selling used clothes, tools or jewellery for example. 

My guess is that they will run all this data through some kind of algorithm or AI analysis to try and identify those which have a highest number of indicators that they are trading, and then follow up on these lower hanging fruit.

Lets say you sell 31 items, but combined they average less than £30 each. There would be no point in pursuing this, as even if you were trading, your turnover is still less than £1000 so wouldn't be taxable anyway.

RedImp_2

90PLCE said:

Thanks, that clarifies something that I'd not properly understood/realised. I'm figuring that if everything I sell is used, by default HMRC surely considers them as personal possessions being decluttered / sold at a loss.

That leaves the matter of eBay's 30 sold listings limit: when you reach that limit, does anyone know if HMRC takes an interest and scrutinises my sales/turnover? I just want a simple life.

I’ve sold lots more than 30 but low value clutter mostly, never heard a peep.
Although I wouldn’t say that selling used items is a get out in itself, people make a living buying and selling used items.

soolin

RedImp_2 said:

90PLCE said:

Thanks, that clarifies something that I'd not properly understood/realised. I'm figuring that if everything I sell is used, by default HMRC surely considers them as personal possessions being decluttered / sold at a loss.

That leaves the matter of eBay's 30 sold listings limit: when you reach that limit, does anyone know if HMRC takes an interest and scrutinises my sales/turnover? I just want a simple life.

I’ve sold lots more than 30 but low value clutter mostly, never heard a peep.
Although I wouldn’t say that selling used items is a get out in itself, people make a living buying and selling used items.

Actually most people I am personally aware of that have been ‘caught’ were selling second hand clothes.