how are businesses getting away with not being registered since ebay / hrmc crackdown?

[evolingretro]

Is ebay actually cracking down on businesses selling as private sellers to avoid the fees or was it just a scare tactic  ?

I have seen 100s of accounts some on the the front pages who have well over 100kworth of stock  are still registered as private even though they state on their listings they are businesses.

If they get reported to the HRMC and are paying taxes apart from avoiding consumer law and ebay fees will anything else happen to them ?

[myriad*seller]

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@podlingsmum2007 wrote:

If a seller is registered as a sole trader with HMRC, ebay will force any that are using private seller accounts to change to a business account.

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No they won't. Who told you that particular nugget of wisdom?

eBay doesn't have access to that information anyway, it would be a breach of GDPR to give out this info! 

They have no idea who is registered with HMRC and who isn't. They only supply info TO HMRC, they cannot access info on tax status FROM HMRC. 

[myriad*seller]

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@555njp wrote:

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@pulseofthedead wrote:

So if a “private” seller actually pays their taxes to HMRC so above the law in that way, who is enforcing that they should be registered as a business….

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No one.
It should be Trading Standards but frankly in the few dealings I’ve had with them in the past they are USELESS (and I’m being polite 😁).
If you tell them something is wrong with a business in that it is breaking the law, ripping people off etc. the usual response is “buyer beware”.

Yeah, really helpful, thanks…!

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Trading Standards lack the funding to be able to do anything useful

[myriad*seller]

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@podlingsmum2007 wrote:

Tax is a separate thing to being registered with HMRC as a sole trader. Irrespective of profits and tax on profits, ebay will get reciprocal information from HMRC of a person's sole trader status so yes, ebay will force these to register as a business account.

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No they won't.

Stop making stuff up. 

[podlingsmum2007]

A self-employed decorator would not have stock to open a business account to sell on ebay. Of course they can sell used clothes on a private account.

[kempseykate]

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So HMRC will not only tell ebay someone's tax status, they will also tell them the occupation of that person?
I don't think so.

[ett1954]

"Trading Standards lack the funding ..... " - It doesn't require funding for the relevant Trading Standard's Association to raise the issue as a concern for consumer rights at government ministerial level and for government to ensure selling platforms are held fully or partially liable much the same as happened with sellers not registering for VAT.  Once there is a financial hit to eBay you will be surprised how quickly they can act.

Unfortunately adopting the three monkeys principle seems to be the preferred action of many local authority organisations.

[myriad*seller]

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@ett1954 wrote:

"Trading Standards lack the funding ..... " - It doesn't require funding for the relevant Trading Standard's Association to raise the issue as a concern for consumer rights at government ministerial level and for government to ensure selling platforms are held fully or partially liable much the same as happened with sellers not registering for VAT.  Once there is a financial hit to eBay you will be surprised how quickly they can act.

Unfortunately adopting the three monkeys principle seems to be the preferred action of many local authority organisations.

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Perhaps you could raise it with them and get them to raise the issue if you think they will take action?

[podlingsmum2007]

You are going off on tangents. I have not said that.