ebay - the taxman commeth!!

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E CLASS

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Oct 16, 2008
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As I understand it ebay may very soon be handing over thousands of transaction records / details of traders on ebay UK to HMRC...

The gov need to get this deficit down anyway we can I suppose.

I think there will be a few rather nervous people out there in ebay land...
 
It will be nearly impossible to police.

How many transactions go through eBay? Millions.... And the police are going to sift through people who are selling their childrens clothes for 99p and ask for 20% tax?
 
It will be nearly impossible to police.

How many transactions go through eBay? Millions.... And the police are going to sift through people who are selling their childrens clothes for 99p and ask for 20% tax?

Much easier than you think.

Why would they bother with 99p transactions? They'll be looking at large individual transactions and those with large numbers of transactions. The Pareto Principle comes into play - 20% of the transactions yielding 80% of tax recovery.

I know of a number of people, including a next door neighbour, who hide behind eBay accounts and make a good, undeclared living on the side. About time it was policed better.
 
It will be nearly impossible to police.

How many transactions go through eBay? Millions.... And the police are going to sift through people who are selling their childrens clothes for 99p and ask for 20% tax?

Its not about policing its about looking at the historic data of the big'uns!

I think there are a lot of very sweaty palms out there....
 
Disagree, always easier and cheaper to target the little people
 
Mr E and E Class,
I agree with the principal of what you are saying, but can you imagine how it would make eBay look? People would destroy their accounts within days and eBay would lose a fortune!

And isn't their a law of some sort that stated that you can't be taxed on an item more than once. Hence this wouldn't affect second hand sales?
 
Disagree, always easier and cheaper to target the little people

Not in this instance I would suspect. HMRC resources are not infinite, so I could easily see them looking at where the big numbers are.

Could be interesting results I think.
 
You can be taxed endless times on the same, just watch the interest on your bank accounts. Wine too - if someone brokes wine on your behalf on which you have paid both duty and VAT the purchaser of the goods will have to pay VAT again etc.

The whole issue is a simple one - if you make sufficient income from an activity you take on the badge of trade and your earnings are liable to tax like all other income. I very much doubt that someone selling cakes left over from Aunt Mabel's funeral will be liable, but a trader will have his income scrutinised.

No problems with it at all.
 
That's why I said they'd probably bring in an eBay tax. That way they'd have instant access to all account holders. If they wanted the big hitters in money terms it would be easier for them to use information from Paypal.
As you say though it'll be interesting to see how they go about it
 
As above, this is not for you and me, its for those making money. Selling the odd thing will not incur tax.
 
It is fairly easy to target the larger sellers. The evidence is there on the net. All HMRC have to do is to look at who is doing the actual buying and selling and check VAT registration and income tax / corporate tax / sole trader registrations. Some people will have to cough up their fair share. Nothing wrong with that.
 
Maybe they should cross reference ebay sellers that have large and/or multiple transactions and those claiming benefits.
 
Don't you have a tax free allowance? I reckon anyone selling the occasional item has nothing to worry about (yet)... it's the powersellers that need to beware!

What I'm curious about is how it applies to extra-UK traders who sell in the UK. E.g. there are a lot of HongKong sellers posting on UK ebay...

Also, give it some time and you'll see eBay fees rise again, this time as eBay gets asked to cover taxes for items sold on it's site...

m.
 
I wonder how many eBayers it takes to offset the lost tax from the likes of Cayman Islands, Jersey, Lichtenstein, Andorra etc.?
 
They're not going to be after people making a few quid occasionally by selling their crap when they clear out their garages/lofts/desks etc. There are plenty of people making decent full or part time incomes from ebay who will be targeted.
 

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