Tax on £1000 side hustle

[Bods]

Only profit would be taxable surely, but finding a receipt for something you bought cash will be difficult......

This was another question I had, clearly if you buy something one week and repair and sell next week for double, triple the price your making money but what if you owned the item for a few years and it's then worth 3x what you paid, probably can't remember what you paid, how can they say you made money if no trace what you paid

It's what the scum Government do with all the money they collect from us all we should be concerned with like funding wars etc, I mean who actually wants Wars apart from nutters running the world that get the little people to kill each other like pawns in a chess game, everyone should say no, not fighting anymore, you lot fight each other if you want wars, leave us out of it and stop funding it with our money

Guardian Reports as well
Another Guardian report

 

[neo-geo-mvs]

With this 30 items and £1000 value, what happens if you are selling say 50 items and value is under £1000, will this be "reported". Cheers

 

[eccentric-nut]

if you are selling say 50 items and value is under £1000, will this be "reported". Cheers

From my understanding, yes it will be.

Some more information here:

Check if you need to tell HMRC about your income from online platforms

Find out if you need to declare income from selling personal possessions, goods or services online, creating online content or renting out property using digital platforms.

www.gov.uk

 

[neo-geo-mvs]

From my understanding, yes it will be.

Some more information here:

Check if you need to tell HMRC about your income from online platforms

Find out if you need to declare income from selling personal possessions, goods or services online, creating online content or renting out property using digital platforms.

www.gov.uk

Thanks. From reading, there is no mention of 30 items limit, just the £1000 limit.

 

[John Bennett]

I had it in my head that it was more like the onus was still on the public to read the news and make the decision whether they have to do a self-assessment, rather than alarm bells going off at HMRC from the millions selling odds and sods on eBay, Amazon etc.
i.e. I guess there'll likely be many algorithms that bring someone onto their radar, but it would be quite surprising if it's immediately triggered by £1001 income from video game parts on eBay.

But if you ever do get noticed and haven't been doing an assessment, I wonder if they'll want to do an audit on what you've been up to for the last few years.

 

[qjuk]

Thanks. From reading, there is no mention of 30 items limit, just the £1000 limit.

The 30 transactions limit is mentioned in a This Is Money news article (near the bottom of the page).

 

[adammoogle]

I had it in my head that it was more like the onus was still on the public to read the news and make the decision whether they have to do a self-assessment, rather than alarm bells going off at HMRC from the millions selling odds and sods on eBay, Amazon etc.
i.e. I guess there'll likely be many algorithms that bring someone onto their radar, but it would be quite surprising if it's immediately triggered by £1001 income from video game parts on eBay.

But if you ever do get noticed and haven't been doing an assessment, I wonder if they'll want to do an audit on what you've been up to for the last few years.

Yes, it's all about self policing. Make a big splash and encourage people to self-disclose. There's millions of ebay sellers and only hundreds of HMRC staff. It's impossible for them to keep an eye on everyone.
If you did get investigated, providing you had a valid argument for why you had not declared (i.e. your not trading to make a profit) they'd likely accept that.
You'll probably see a few high profile cases where they take people to court in a year or two's time as well, little bit of fear to nudge the masses into line.

 

[Fantazia2]

On the Money Saving expert site it did say 30 transactions AND over £1000 when they first did a page about it, not sure if that has been updated since then though.

EDIT: Theyve now updated this to OR instead of AND.

 

[Flinnster]

With this 30 items and £1000 value, what happens if you are selling say 50 items and value is under £1000, will this be "reported". Cheers

Yes, it's either / or.
So 1x item for £1000.01 will be auto-reported, as will 31 items worth 1p each.
On each platform, so ebay, paypal, etc..
This will likely generate a 'you need to do a self assessment tax return' mailer, which once you've gone through that process (which can be a ballache and cost you extra fees/costs in itself) will then determine if you owe tax.

 

[Vorbis]

If anyone wants to send me valuable stuff for free, you can use it as a tax write off. Happy to provide a receipt 😄

 

[neo-geo-mvs]

Yes, it's either / or.
So 1x item for £1000.01 will be auto-reported, as will 31 items worth 1p each.
On each platform, so ebay, paypal, etc..
This will likely generate a 'you need to do a self assessment tax return' mailer, which once you've gone through that process (which can be a ballache and cost you extra fees/costs in itself) will then determine if you owe tax.

Thanks.

So this "reporting" is only from 1st Jan 2024, so previous year is not reported?

I sold more last year with Ebay 70% for 100 listing and so I'm well over the 30 items limit.

Currently I'm not selling anything. Would you say it's safe to start selling again provided I keep within the "limits" from now on?

Thanks

 

[kingtreelo]

sold about 28 items last year for about £800, all for one system though, wonder if they think i am a trader

 

[TheDaddy]

Amazing when you think about it, we struggle to put the heating on and HMRC decide to come after us and make it even harder , why the owners of Amazon and other tax dodging companies keep raking it in and pay feck all.

I suppose like police , they arrest a smack head , send them to court and fine them to money they cant afford to pay so they look for easy money , like someone who loses concentration for a minute and does 33 in a 30.

Easy money,

Dave.

 

[TheDaddy]

My only other thought was the auction programs like ' yorkshire auction house ' and the lile , easy pickings for these HMRC scum bags.

Dave.

Bad day , rant over.

 

[John Bennett]

Yes, the automated system is just from the start of this year.
Is it April to April too, so you could maybe get double the amount in this year as a starting gift...

It sounds sketchy as hell - this reads like 30 transactions per-firm, or £1735

Airbnb, eBay, Vinted and other apps to share more information with HMRC

New rules mean online retail platforms including Airbnb and eBay will share more information with HMRC.

www.bbc.co.uk

I suppose they can get away with it being sketchy as that's not the legal threshold for anything, it's just the speculative trigger level for firms to prod HMRC. Heh, in line with the above post, it reminds me of the oft-mentioned 10% + 3mph speeding threshold that you won't see announced anywhere.

I can see it being a bit of a cold-sweat moment if you managed to get the e-mail, but know you're no where near a trader and really don't want to start doing a self assessment, but don't want to pick a fight with them.

 

[Bods]

They added VAT to ebay years back. I assumed it was because it was easier than this way for them

Companies like amazon are part of the system so they can do as they please, organised criminals

 

[John Bennett]

My only other thought was the auction programs like ' yorkshire auction house ' and the lile , easy pickings for these HMRC scum bags.

Dave.

Bad day , rant over.

I don't know if I can see them as scum bags simply for the collecting tax part.

But I'm certainly not a fan of automated snooping and the thresholds mentioned are scarily low.

 

[Flinnster]

Thanks.

So this "reporting" is only from 1st Jan 2024, so previous year is not reported?

I sold more last year with Ebay 70% for 100 listing and so I'm well over the 30 items limit.

Currently I'm not selling anything. Would you say it's safe to start selling again provided I keep within the "limits" from now on?

Thanks

I am no tax expert, but my gut feeling here is that by January 2025 (that's the deadline for platforms to complete their auto reporting processes) HMRC will be sent details for the current financial year, which is 6th April 2023 - 5th April 2024.

Before 6th April 2023, who knows? If HMRC feel they are likely to get big wins from looking, they may do so. If you're only giving them a small tax payout I'd expect them not to bother.

'Is it safe' depends entirely on your circumstances of how much selling you did per platform so far since April 2023.
You can go to ebay Seller Hub, Performance, Sales and then use the drop down menu to set a custom date range. Enter 6/4/2023 - todays date.
Ignore the right hand side where it says 'compared to:' and press the generate report button.
It'll only take a few seconds to generate, and you'll see 'Total sales' at the top left (if over £1000 you'll get auto-reported) and underneath it 'Quantity sold' (if 30 or more you'll get auto-reported).

Don't forget ebay is just a single platform, so you'll need to also look at your incoming payments total on PayPal, Vinted, and anywhere else that handles online funds directly for things you have sold online.

I would expect in the next few months the media will need to clarify if the selling limits are per person (so all online platforms combined), per platform, or per-user account on each platform. If it's per user account then you can already spot the strategies that the cheap knockoff sellers will be using to try and bypass the current regulations.

 

[TheDaddy]

I don't know if I can see them as scum bags simply for the collecting tax part.

But I'm certainly not a fan of automated snooping and the thresholds mentioned are scarily low.

Its how I feel when they go for the little guy because its easy money. I have been part of one of these tax inspections and let me tell you they are dirty and will try and use any means to ectract as much cash from you as possible.

Scum bags , possible a little strong, but its how it makes me feel. They have lots of mkbey abd i certainly dont so if tgey investigate me i have no means of affording help.

Dave.

 

[Flinnster]

Yes, the automated system is just from the start of this year.
Is it April to April too, so you could maybe get double the amount in this year as a starting gift...

It sounds sketchy as hell - this reads like 30 transactions per-firm, or £1735

Airbnb, eBay, Vinted and other apps to share more information with HMRC

New rules mean online retail platforms including Airbnb and eBay will share more information with HMRC.

www.bbc.co.uk

I suppose they can get away with it being sketchy as that's not the legal threshold for anything, it's just the speculative trigger level for firms to prod HMRC. Heh, in line with the above post, it reminds me of the oft-mentioned 10% + 3mph speeding threshold that you won't see announced anywhere.

I can see it being a bit of a cold-sweat moment if you managed to get the e-mail, but know you're no where near a trader and really don't want to start doing a self assessment, but don't want to pick a fight with them.

OK the BBC are just repuking out the same headline info without actually supplying the full details which are here:

https://www.oecd.org/tax/exchange-of-tax-information/model-reporting-rules-for-digital-platforms-international-exchange-framework-and-optional-module-for-sale-of-goods.pdf

An “Excluded Seller” is any Seller:
a) that is an Entity for which the Platform Operator facilitated more than 2,000 Relevant Services for
the rental of immovable property in respect of a Property Listing during the Reportable Period;
b) that is a governmental entity;
c) that is an Entity the stock of which is regularly traded on an established securities market or a related Entity of an Entity the stock of which is regularly traded on an established securities market;
or
d) for which the Platform Operator solely facilitated less than 30 Relevant Activities for the sale of Goods and for which the total amount of Consideration paid or credited did not exceed 2,000 EUR during the Reportable Period.


So an 'included' seller is someone over 30 transactions and over 2,000 EUR for the whole year.
The rest of the paper is likely to have lawyers, financial advisors and accountants debating for a very very long time, all while earning good money on the stopwatch.

*and yes, the wording above says AND, and not OR, but current advice is that it will actually be triggered at 30 OR 2000 EUR