EBay sales to be taxed in UK

[Terry Sills]

It seems that income from eBay sales amounting to over £1,000.00 per year, are to be taxed in the UK. I wonder how that will affect those of us that are downsizing our film and equipment collections. Surely that would be very unfair, particularly when some of the time it stands as a loss rather than profit, as we are just trying to offload the responsibility for family having to dispose of the stuff before we pop our clogs!
You thoughts please, especially anyone who is expert on taxation legislation?

[Mike Newell]

Another Daily Mail scare story. It will only happen if EBAY does the work for the Inland Revenue. It already collects VAT for them. If you have ever had any dealings with the Inland Revenue there simply isn’t enough staff to do all the work. 100,000 left due to retirement, redundancy and no recruitment.

Tax on savings also changed this year and it is still being paid gross without tax. It’s upto the individual to declare their revenue on a tax return.

Can’t see it affecting individual sellers unless they are selling NEW films for hundreds of pounds. NEW is different to USED. It will be directed to businesses operating on eBay and people claiming benefits or allowances and selling high value items on eBay

All government departments have full access to bank activities to counter money launderIng. It’s how a lot of benefit claimants are caught with savings they thought were hidden away.

[Terry Sills]

Thanks Mike
Yes I agree that it is probably directed at people using the platform for a regular business income which is only right and proper of course. But what worries me is the trading allowance of £1,000.00 ceiling mentioned. That can easily be overtaken when selling our
collections.

[John Halfacre]

From 1st Jan 2024 Ebay are required to provide details of UK sellers who sell 30+ items or £1,000+ per annum to HMRC. It applies to any sales - either of new or used items. Apparently those sellers will get a letter from HMRC to the name and address registered on Ebay informing them that they have to submit a tax return which must include details of the 'trading' income received. This can then automatically be matched to the Ebay data for that sellers account, presumably on the basis of the Ebay registered name and address. The above has come from various threads on the Ebay Community forum. The same rules apply to other platforms such as Etsy, Vinted etc

As a VAT registered business seller (limited company) we already have to complete VAT and CT returns and Ebay have been providing data on business sellers to HMRC for a few years. However it will be interesting to see the impact the new rules have on :
a) Private sellers using Ebay to downsize a collection, sell a late relatives collection, or to sell a few films to buy some new ones
b) The various small dealers who operate as private sellers on Ebay with sales volume and value beneath Ebays threshold for registering as a business seller

Guess only time will tell if this will reduce the amount of film available on Ebay UK

[Mike Newell]

Well that will make life interesting. Few less Star War features will be appearing on eBay. It might push film prices back down to realistic prices and send traffic back to the conventions.

[Graham Sinden]

Maybe for those selling a high priced item like Star Wars it might just make them put a slightly higher reserve on it to factor in the extra tax taken.

Yes I agree Mike it will be better for Film Fairs with larger top collections appearing there instead of the mass of faded films being offloaded. Long live Blackpool and all the others.

[Rodney Bourke]

With Sellers having to take a Cut from ebay Commission's & Ad fees, plus Pay Pal fees, and now GST Tax fees just keep coming.
In 2011 if Sellers made more than $20k ebay told the Tax, then in 2015 it was 10k, then before COVID all amounts were reported.

https://www.etax.com.au/ebay-income/

[Krzysztof Arendt]

Hello, This is a thread about taxes but can anyone tell if it is safe to send to ebay a scan of the ID that ebay requests to transfer the amount from a sold item? thank you.

[Osi Osgood]

That's what I was thinking, Mike! We will have people attempting to sell, for instance, Star Wars, at lower starting bid, and perhaps capping it off at a lower "buy it now". Now that doesn't mean that buyers can't continue to rediculously bid things up, but there's a part of this that borders on insanity. If ebay desires to take yet another chunk out of sellers pockets, and sellers choose to sell for less, guess what? Ebay inevitably makes less, hence the insanity. Why place yourself in a position that will make you less money?

[Cliff Perriam]

It appears that this page, like Clarissa, explains it all

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sellercentre/...3Avlp_homepage

Bottom line appears to be....no tax for the likes of private sellers.

[Joerg Polzfusz]

BTW: There’s a similar legislation in Germany: When you earn more than 2000€ per year on eBay or sell stuff in more than 30 transactions, then eBay is forced to transmit your data to the ministry of finances:
https://www.mdr.de/ratgeber/finanzen...nzamt-100.html
But this „data share“ doesn’t automatically mean that you have to pay taxes. The rules behind it are a little bit too complicated for me to translate them to English. (As I don’t speak „Legalese“, I have even got problems understanding the „German“ version. )