eBay Turnover under £1000 trading allowance

rumouri

I have been selling items on eBay as a private seller for a long time with low trading record, mostly used unwanted personal items. As I have sold a few items this year that reached the 30+ items and £1800 threhold - a used bicycle, that eBay need share my NI record and will notify HMRC. I am expecting a letter.

For what I'd like to know, is what actually counts towards that £1000 Trading allowance? I have a NET earning figure from eBay which is the money goes into my bank account, how about eBay buyer protection fee and the Simple Delivery as these are not collected by me, does it counts towards my £1000k trading allowance.

Looking forward to hearing your advice.

Spoonie_Turtle

The trading allowance is for items you have bought or made to sell. 

What towards it is gross receipts in a tax year, it would include all income you receive including postage and fees (although fees no longer applicable for private sellers; postage would count if you get paid and then buy the label, but not if buyer pays and you never see the money).

soolin

As per Spoonie_Turtle selling your own items is not trading so I’m not sure why you are concerned with trading limits. 

There is plenty of coverage about this , plus eBay give their own explanation , but always worth going g direct to HMRC for correct information 

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/no-tax-changes-for-online-sellers

vacheron

As above, selling your own items is not trading.

I have sold about £4k of stuff on eBay this year, almost all were personal posessions with one exception:

I saw some items last year which I knew which were super cheap on Amazon (they RRP for £350 and Amazon were selling them for £31 each... so I bought 10).

I since have sold three of these for an average of about £200 each, this is clearly trading as I bought them with the express intention to sell, so this £600 total will count towards my £1000 trading allowance.

If I sell one more this year, I will simply take the remainder off sale until next April to prevent me having to any of the required paperwork should I exceed £1000.

LITRG

Hello, if you are selling a mixture of items, our news article and examples may help with your query: https://www.litrg.org.uk/news/selling-online-make-sure-you-keep-clear-records

MyRealNameToo

rumouri said:

I have been selling items on eBay as a private seller for a long time with low trading record, mostly used unwanted personal items. As I have sold a few items this year that reached the 30+ items and £1800 threhold - a used bicycle, that eBay need share my NI record and will notify HMRC. I am expecting a letter.

For what I'd like to know, is what actually counts towards that £1000 Trading allowance? I have a NET earning figure from eBay which is the money goes into my bank account, how about eBay buyer protection fee and the Simple Delivery as these are not collected by me, does it counts towards my £1000k trading allowance.

Looking forward to hearing your advice.

Are you trading or just selling your old stuff? You say it was mostly your old stuff which suggests at least some of it wasnt. 

The £1,000 is the revenue point at which you must registered as self employed, this is gross revenue, but it would only be for the non-personal items. Once you register as self employed and start doing self assessment you get the choice of deducting your actual business expenses or a flat £1k - which is better depends on what your business expenses are. 

HMRC isnt necessarily going to write to you, this is just one of a series of data sources they have to try and ensure those that are running their own businesses are both registering them correctly and declaring everything that you should have. 

There will be plenty who are just having a clear out of stuff that will breach the reporting thresholds but never be contacted by HMRC as HMRC are comfortable that this is just spring clear out not an undeclared business. 

rumouri

LITRG said:

Hello, if you are selling a mixture of items, our news article and examples may help with your query: https://www.litrg.org.uk/news/selling-online-make-sure-you-keep-clear-records

Many thanks, it is really useful. I have to keep a record of whether it is Trading or not, and focus on the Trading part. According to the information, the platform fee that buyer pays and Simple Delivery fee would be excluded from the £1k trading allowance, just any money that reaches my Bank Account. Hope I have interpreted correctly.