HMRC Income From Online Marketplace Letter

SeekingAdvice1211

Sorry just another question, as I’m not used to dealing with HMRC and their appeals process. 

On looking at the letter again, the letter attached to the email does appear to be a decision letter as it says “our decision”. 

Does this mean that I have 30 days from the date of that letter to send over the new information and then formally appeal?

If the appeal isn’t successful I can then request a statutory review where the case will then be reviewed by different officer. 

After that it would be appeal to the tribunal?

Just want to make sure I’m understanding the appeals process correctly as I’ve never had to do this before. 

Thank you 

mybestattempt

SeekingAdvice1211 said:

I’ve never had anything like that from the bank. 

I’m surprised they’ve asked for receipts, seems a little unfair given how long ago some of the items were purchased. It’s almost like they know they’re asking for something that can’t be provided. 

Thankfully I’ve managed to get quite a few of my old receipts back from the Apple Store for stuff that I did sell during this period. I’m going to send these over to them and ask them why I’m being treated as trading. Hopefully that will be an end to it. 

HMRC will always ask for evidence to verify your assertions and however indignant you may feel the onus is on you to convince them you weren't trading.

The receipts you send to HMRC may be enough to persuade them you weren't trading. However, the more information and receipts you send to them the sooner they will reach a conclusion and they will explain the reasoning for that.

I would suggest rather than send just the receipts, in addition you could perhaps prepare a spreadsheet where you can relate a sale to a purchase with a note of which item it replaced and how it was paid for even if you don't have the receipt.

Over a three year period the pattern of replacing personal items will emerge, that is the regular sale of items many months after the time of the related purchase.

The more effort you put into backing up what you have already told them the sooner the enquiry will end.

mybestattempt

SeekingAdvice1211 said:

Sorry just another question, as I’m not used to dealing with HMRC and their appeals process. 

On looking at the letter again, the letter attached to the email does appear to be a decision letter as it says “our decision”. 

Does this mean that I have 30 days from the date of that letter to send over the new information and then formally appeal?

If the appeal isn’t successful I can then request a statutory review where the case will then be reviewed by different officer. 

After that it would be appeal to the tribunal?

Just want to make sure I’m understanding the appeals process correctly as I’ve never had to do this before. 

Thank you 

You have 30 days to formally appeal a decision, it's a statutory time limit, so it is your priority to appeal each tax and penalty assessment.

The information should accompany the appeal, not precede it.

If after considering the information HMRC maintain you were trading they will send you a letter outlining their "view of the matter" and offer a review by another officer. There is a statutory time limit to ask for a review and this should be explained in the "view of the matter" letter.

If you don't accept the review conclusion then you can, again within a statutory time limit set out in the review conclusion letter, refer the appeal to tribunal.

TimeLord1

Some links 

https://www.gov.uk/tax-appeals/review-of-a-tax-or-penalty-decision?hl=en-GB


https://www.gov.uk/tax-tribunal?hl=en-GB

SeekingAdvice1211

Yes I have learnt from this, from now on I will always keep original receipts or at least keep a photo of them. That’s a good idea on the spreadsheet showing sold items and purchases that have replaced them. I still have some time before I need to send the appeal so may do this. 

Thank you for confirming the appeals process, just wanted to make sure I was understanding it correctly. I’ll send the new information (receipts/invoices etc) along with a request for an appeal for the 3 years they’ve asked about and any associated penalties and see what they come back with.

My concern here is will they then go through the same process for the next tax year 2024-2025 as they’ll have this info now from eBay, then again for 2025-2026?