General Partnership

[sunburstbay]

I was a sole trader on ebay but formed a partnership (me and my wife). I changed the business type to general partnership. It then came back and asked for "official partnership document". I uploaded the letter from HMRC with the UTR number on but this failed verification. Having spent a good while on ebay chat they were saying I need to send them a partnership tax return which I do not have (partnership was formed tax year 23-24), so tax return due by Jan 2025

I am now trying to get them to put it back to sole trader so I can change it later when I do a tax return. In the chat they also mention "May I ask, have you tried uploading an Agreement Tax document for each partner within the last tax year?"

Anyone know what else they could be asking for or what I can give them?

[bravergrace]

I don't know what they'll be asking you for, next but whatever it is, it will be based on something that is universal in the USA but not relevant to a normal husband-and-wife partnership in the UK.

eBay has never been able to cope with the notion of a UK "common-or-garden" general partnership, and iyour best bet is probably to continue trying to persuade you to reset the account to sole trader.  It won't affect your tax returns - you just use the trading figures from the sole trader account, and split them 50/50 or whatever proportion is appropriate between the two of you.

[sunburstbay]

Yep I think you are right there and that may be my only option. I have created a partnership agreement and sent that to them just to see what happens, but I would be surprised if that works. Otherwise I will hope they can reset me back to how I was. I will update here if I get anywhere just in case someone else has the same problem.

You would think that they would at least send a message with some guidance as to the problem with the document I sent, particularily as it has all the information on they say they require.

[bravergrace]

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@sunburstbay wrote:

You would think that they would at least send a message with some guidance as to the problem with the document I sent, particularily as it has all the information on they say they require.

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In my experience of eBay's Kafkaesque world, their usual attitude is that "We mustn't tell people what our requirements are, otherwise they will meet our requirements and that would be gaming the system." 

It's a bit like sending your food back in a restaurant with the excuse "there's something wrong with it, sort it out", rather than specifying that it's too cold or non-vegan or you ordered custard not cream or whatever. 

Explaining what the difficulty actually is, would spoil the fun because the point of the exercise isn't really to solve the problem, but to punish the chef, the waitress and everyone else in the place, by being as obnoxious and disruptive as possible.

[wholesaleclearout]

I am in a similar situation.

Traded on eBay as a pertnership for 19 years, but then made the mistake of moving house. When I tried to change the address, eBay then wanted official documentation relating to the partnership (like you, its me and my wife).

After sending bank statements and tax returns they still owuldn't budge, but alo wouldn't provide any guidance. In the end I uploaded a letter disguised as a tax form. In that letter I asked them to specify exactly what they wanted.

This is their reply;

"you will need to provide a business document that demonstrates business ownership and structure, such as Partnership Agreement, Tax return document from EACH partner within the last tax year or Self-Assessment of Partnerships".

I might just send them a copy of my marriage certificate! It's our 30 wedding anniversary this year.

[sunburstbay]

Hi!

You need to send them a partnership agreement, this is what worked for me. You can sign up for a free trial at lawdepot.co.uk, and they have a template.

From that site click Buisness at the top and partnership agreement. Just do the very basic sections and when it asks for the partnership name, put in the name folowed by the text "Tax ID:- put your UTR here". This will ensure your tax id is on the document.

It ended up being about 11 pages, but this got it verified.

Hope that helps!

Mark.

[wholesaleclearout]

Just got the account unlocked. Got a copy of my completed partnership self assessment form from my accountant. This seemed to do the trick.

In total I was locked out of the account for over a year!

[moonspender]

I'd never heard of a partnership agreement but as Mark said we completed a partnership agreement and it was accepted.

We used simpley-docs ( one off fee of £42 ) and when it asks for the partnership name, we put in the name followed by the text "Tax ID:- we put our partnership UTR here" to ensure the tax id is on the document.

A stressful process and only resolved from finding this post. Neither HMRC or our bank when we set up the partnership account requested a partnership agreement, i think if ebay had explained what they wanted clearer it would have been a smoother process.