FAO Ebay staff - Reporting businesses trading on private accounts

[howmuchtobid]

To whom it may concern.

It's about time it was made easier for Ebay users to be able to report businesses trading on private accounts in a much more straight forward way.  At the moment there is no obvious option when using the report item option, i.e. there is no business trading on a private account option.

I and many other business sellers/Ebay users have spent a lot of time reporting blatant business sellers on private accounts however we are often wasting our time as all we get is a pointless AI response which simply isn't good enough.

This is something that needs to be introduced urgently as it will help legitimate business sellers survive and hopefully flourish, also in many ways it will be of great benefit to Ebay. It will also help Ebay's image as having so many illegal sellers on the platform is not a good look.

Can someone from Ebay please confirm they have seen this, thank you.

[555njp]

This is a legal requirement from January in that data from ALL online market places has to be reported to HMRC when the limits are exceeded. It's to check for money laundering and tax evasion and 30+ countries are signed up to do same.

As it says, no change to UK tax laws, (meaning real private sellers and even those trading on wrong accounts but already paying correct tax have nothing to worry about).

Its just automated data reporting to HMRC to decide if they need to dig deeper.

Back to this thread, It means eBay has to already have a way of identifying linked accounts as my understanding is that eBay have to provide selling data by person or business entity, not by account.
So for example, software somewhere (or NINOs) must tell eBay that I have both personal and business accounts that have been active this year which have both gone through one or more of the reporting thresholds.

I fully expect a questioning nudge letter from HMRC next year as obviously my private listings won't be showing on my reported trading accounts.

Plus like most business sellers, I report using tax year accounting periods, whereas online platforms have to provide last calendar year sales data.
So this ain't gonna line up at all!

[555njp]

Just to add for anyone else who has somehow completely missed this...?

The reporting changes became a legal requirement in January this year.
Platforms have to gather records from this calendar year (all sales from 1-1-24) and if either threshold (£1740 or 30 items) is exceeded, then report sales data to HMRC from January next year.

[ett1954]

"Well, if it's £1000 or £1200 that will be me gone - I won't be registering as a business when I'm not one."

If, and this is only hearsay at the moment, this was introduced I would suspect that eBay are smart enough to recognise it could alienate many genuine private sellers which the business needs.  It could work if any account flagged by this process is given the option to confirm they are a private seller.

This could be confirmed by a correctly worded statement which allows the account holder to confirm (probably by a tick box), that they comply with UK and EU regulations appertaining to HMRC, Consumer Rights Act 2015, GPSR, and any other appropriate laws business sellers are required to adhere to.  This would then absolve eBay from any actions relating to infringements.  At the same time this would highlight to those 'private' sellers that they would be solely responsible for misrepresenting themselves.  At the moment there is only the totally bland 'the seller is responsible for their listing' statement.

At the same time such a statement could be constructed in a way which helps educate many of those private sellers who do really believe they are private through ignorance of trading laws in the UK.

Yes, some would continue trading as private sellers but nothing is going to be 100% perfect, and the reporting of information to HMRC will eventually pick up many of these rogue traders.  This would allow genuine private sellers to carry on as they have done; they may have to satisfy HMRC but then they may have to do that anyway under the current reporting procedure.

[rainbowtrax]

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@kempseykate wrote:

Well, if it's £1000 or £1200 that will be me gone - I won't be registering as a business when I'm not one.
The unregistered business sellers will probably stay and register (finally!), but the proper private sellers will most likely leave taking with them lots of quirky/unusual/hard to find items that many come to this site for. They will also probably stop buying on here. (If ebay tell me to register as a business, when I'm not, I won't be buying on here.)

So when all the registered business sellers are putting the flags out that the competition is now either still competition (but registered) or gone, they need to ask themselves was it worth it if the buyers have gone elsewhere? (Ebay need to think about that as well.)

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Totally agree and, as a business seller, that is my main concern. I for one am not putting any flags out at this possibility - it's the last thing business sellers need. We need buyers to be drawn back to the site not driven away from it. My categories already have Discogs to compete with as well as Vinted and Facebook Marketplace so it's not like seller-buyers are short of places to move to.

[kempseykate]

@rainbowtrax 

... and there is the hinted at fees for buyers as well, which won't exactly have buyers rushing here.

So many times in the past I (and others!) have thought that ebay have shot themselves in the foot over various changes. OK, they are still here, so the shots weren't too painful, but now I think it will be both feet and hands with a double barrel shotgun, just to make sure they really do themselves damage 😞

[pg_kicks]

If it was just a random person I'd be thinking that myself but it was a manager from concierge so I'd be hoping they were not telling their customers facebook rumours or twitter rumours. I guess we will see soon enough but if they don't do anything they will still be getting the annoying phone calls/complaints coming from me.

[kempseykate]

So far there have been (mentioned on the boards) 3 different figures from concierge, which suggests that it may be based on fact, but they don't know the actual figures.

Have they managed to send you that link to the help page that allegedly shows this, yet? I spend a good while yesterday evening looking at the help pages for general seller account, business and private, and I couldn't find it.

[myriad*seller]

The wouldn't publish those sorts of figures publicly as it would allow scammers to game the system

[pg_kicks]

Nope, but he didnt reply to the email, I told him I'd not be checking my emails till the weekend anyway but I sent another anyway ha, if/when I do hear back I'll post it here as long as he doesnt say I cant. The most annoying thing is so many of the managers read the boards but dont/cant post but like many have said if there was more communication it would be much easier for all.

[dch2112011]

Now you are asking ebay to communicate - behave !

[kat@ebay]

Hi All,

A question came up on the weekly chat yesterday advising of communication given that private sellers doing over £1000 of sales in a year will be expected to become business sellers by the end of the year. 

This is to confirm that no there is no set figure amount that eBay has for private sellers.  If  you have been given this detail and can provide a contact/call reference then I would be happy to have it followed up for coaching and training purposes.

There is new legislation for UK digital sales that will affect private sellers which may have been discussed which does have a set amount. eBay are required to collect the National Insurance Number for any account holders that surpass £1740 or complete 30 sales in a calendar year. Although private sellers will not be required to upgrade to business for this if they do not provide the number they may have restrictions placed.

Thank you,

Kat

[kempseykate]

Thanks, Kat. That is slightly reassuring.

But honestly - left hand, right hand 😞
I seem to remember that the 'free to sell' pop-up that briefly appeared (early) was denied by ebay, but then a few days later - it was free to sell.

So I guess we will just have to wait and see.

[palison_123]

Its not reasurring at all .

[kempseykate]

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@palison_123 wrote:

Its not reasurring at all .

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I was trying to be nice!

Edit: I think we are coming from different sides. I found it slightly reasurring as a private seller.

[papso22]

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@palison_123 wrote:

Its not reasurring at all .

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Why is it not reassuring?  We queried this with our ebay contacts, they checked, found that misinformation was being given out and have put in a system to train the CS staff.  

Kat then came on here to clear the confusion up.

There are no plans to force private sellers to register as businesses when they reach either of the thresholds being discussed on this thread, and others like it.

[*vyolla*]

Why is it not reassuring?

There were a couple of posts here wherein sellers said that they had been told by concierge that private sellers would have to upgrade to a business account if they made over £1,000 or £1,250 per year.

This clearly was nonsense and quite apparent that something had been misunderstood and they were probably getting mixed up with the digital reporting and the £1,000 Trading Allowance for small business sellers.

We've now had clarification from eBay and you still want to believe that private sellers will need to upgrade? How does these even make the remotest bit of sense? 

[lupo-store]

When you search eBay digital tax reporting on Google the AI response is as follows:

As of January 1, 2024, eBay and other digital selling platforms are required to share seller information with HMRC. This includes:
The number of sales made
The income earned
The seller's full name
The seller's tax ID
The seller's bank account details
The amount and number of transactions
eBay will automatically share this information if a seller meets certain conditions, such as: Making 30 or more sales per year and Earning over £1,700.
eBay will notify sellers when they have crossed these thresholds. Sellers will be prompted to provide eBay with the requested tax identification information.
Sellers will receive a copy of the reported data from HMRC each January. They can use this information to check their income and expenses, which may help them determine if they owe tax on any profits.
Sellers are responsible for paying taxes on their income from eBay, in accordance with all applicable laws. They can contact HM Revenues & Customs about filling out a self-assessment tax return.

[papso22]

And just for once AI is correct.

[*vyolla*]

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@lupo-store wrote:

When you search eBay digital tax reporting on Google the AI response is as follows:

As of January 1, 2024, eBay and other digital selling platforms are required to share seller information with HMRC. This includes:
The number of sales made
The income earned
The seller's full name
The seller's tax ID
The seller's bank account details
The amount and number of transactions
eBay will automatically share this information if a seller meets certain conditions, such as: Making 30 or more sales per year and Earning over £1,700.
eBay will notify sellers when they have crossed these thresholds. Sellers will be prompted to provide eBay with the requested tax identification information.
Sellers will receive a copy of the reported data from HMRC each January. They can use this information to check their income and expenses, which may help them determine if they owe tax on any profits.
Sellers are responsible for paying taxes on their income from eBay, in accordance with all applicable laws. They can contact HM Revenues & Customs about filling out a self-assessment tax return.

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I'm not sure why you've posted that though?

That info was put out at the beginning of this year in the form of an eBay announcement. The other online sites (like Vinted and Etsy) also announced and covered it. It spawned a loads of threads across the various eBay Community boards, discussions on other consumer forums, articles in the media, discussions on radio etc. 

eBay have a guidance page too:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/help/account/regulatory/uk-digital-sales-reporting?id=5454&st=3&pos=1&query=U...

[lupo-store]

just to make people aware who may have missed it