30 items a year

[gillrecords]

Is any one else stopping selling because they've reached their 30 item a year limit and don't want to disclose their national insurance number, personally I think ebay should pull the platform from the UK if the Government don't lift or remove this stupid bit of legislation, See you all in 12 months. 

[tranceenthusiast]

Same selling stuff that would have done for a car boot sale back in the day. Take care mate 

[theelench]

Those questions should surely have been asked as soon as a private seller's sales limit had to be increased  regularly.  Or when they had enough items lying around their houses to use every free listing that ebay cared to give them.  Or when HMRC could see quite easily that a business seller was operating on a private account by cross checking bank details or address manually.  Rumours of effective policing would soon have spread and acted as a deterrent to criminal behaviour by businesses.

Ebay should have had a human asking why a seller had 100 brand new hair dryers to sell or a warehouse full bric-a-brac.

HMRC should have had a team or teams looking into the same sort of "private" seller, they have always had the power to do so, if not the will or resources.

The fact that now, after the OECD initiative, they can find the resources and manpower to start to police on-line sites  and the expanded set of criteria and resulting huge amount of data demonstrates how lax they were before it came into effect.

And ebay is always happy to hoover up more personal information whenever it's given an excuse to do so.  The more they can profile data they have the more valuable it becomes.

If either ebay or HMRC had done their job effectively for the last 20 or so years and weeded out the crooks as they appeared it wouldn't now be necessary to treat thousands of innocent, law abiding genuine private sellers as suspected criminals if they sell 31 old postage stamps in a year.

[lucy_farmer]

'The fact that now, after the OECD initiative, they can find the resources and manpower to start to police on-line sites  and the expanded set of criteria and resulting huge amount of data.....'

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*Now* they don't need to find 'resources and manpower' to deal with all this stuff.

A.I. will be doing that.

Every national and official dept has always wanted to know as much as possible about every person in the nation, but it's always been too expensive and/or intrusive.

Now A.I. is approaching the point of actually being useful  in corrolating and adding up whats going on in all out digital bank accounts/'wallets'/selling accounts etc.....

[theelench]

My point was that we've seen quotes on here that HMRC have allocated extra funds and taken on extra staff to set up more teams to delve into whatever A.I reveals.

Ebay, with all its billions in revenue, has also levied an extra fee to cover the cost of providing the data for A.I to sift through.

IF one, the other, or both had taken the problem of tax / fee evasion seriously years ago and allocated a fraction of the resources they can now find to deal with the problem, it would never have grown to its present proportions.  IMO it would have cost far less as, by demonstrating to the crooks that they were allocating regular but smaller resources every year to shut them down, it would have been a deterrent to most to even try getting away with tax or fee evasion. 

But they didn't and because they didn't thousands of innocent, law abiding, private sellers must now be treated as suspected criminals and provide NINOs.  Something that would never have been necessary if ebay and HMRC had used a small proportion of their vast resources sensibly years ago.

How many times have we both seen sellers on here complaining that ebay has over-charged them on fees, saying that they've cancelled their D/D or closed their bank account to prevent ebay taking them and being advised not to try it.  Because ebay can and will resort to court action and debt collectors.

If ebay hadn't earned that reputation for not letting any sellers get away with refusing to pay fees, it too would have become a big problem once word got out that ebay was a soft touch with no come-back. 

[dougie2582]

I have same problem. I been selling stuff to declutter and now over 30 items. Its just too risky to keep selling items even though items I selling I hardly making any money on. Its a stupid rule 30 items. They should go by how much you make. and its HRMC thing not ebay thing.

[little-rascal-77]

Hi, i have spoken to ebay and they have told me not to worry about going
over 30 items they are more interested in how much yoy have made in cash,
ive sold 33 items and only made £378

[papso22]

---

@little-rascal-77 wrote:
Hi, i have spoken to ebay and they have told me not to worry about going
over 30 items they are more interested in how much yoy have made in cash,
ive sold 33 items and only made £378

---

They lied.  They have no choice other than to report the sales of a seller who sells more than 30 items in the relevant period. 

It's a legal reporting threshold, the same as the value one.

[dougie2582]

So do you know when they start charging you tax as at moment I sold £700 this year from stuff I been selling to declutter?

[papso22]

No-one starts  charging you tax simply because your sales will be reported.

[little-rascal-77]

Didn't say they wont report it, they said dont worry by such a small amount £378

[jonatjonatjonat]

You won't if you are just selling off your own personal possessions (unless you sell a single item or a group of items for more than £6,000)

[little-rascal-77]

Not sure but tax on £378 is about 70 odd quid i think so not that bothered

[dougie2582]

Hope so as it just putting people off from selling now. I have told Ebay my NI as I now on 39 items (£700) but am concerned now from selling anything else.

[papso22]

It wasn't clear that the 'they' in your other post was HMRC. 

However, it's not for ebay to give advice on what HMRC may do with the data.  They cannot give assurances.

[little-rascal-77]

Best to speak to them, go to ebay contact and speak to that automated thing, just keep typing Agent and after a few minutes you get the choice to speak with agent or get them to call you.

[jonatjonatjonat]

Given what they told you isn't even true - I wouldn't personally bother.

[dougie2582]

bother into what?

[jonatjonatjonat]

Contacting customer services as a seller above suggested. No point as the chance of them actually giving out correct information on this seems slim to none.

HMRC have also given out incorrect info according to other posters, who were also told not to give their NI number to eBay even though the HMRC website says you should!

[pegr-834437]

Unless you get somebody in Ireland who knows what they are talking about it really is pointless talking to eBay CS about this. Either ask here or other forums, if you are selling unwanted personal items (which it seems you and most are) then you can sell 4534 items as long as none are over £6k as a single price (or a job lot but that gets difficult) and you wont pay a single penny in tax. If you are buying to sell (doesnt look like you are) then you need to be on a business account anyway and pay the correct taxes.

You and the person you were replying too both just seem like private sellers so no need to worry and no need to pay any extra tax.

[dougie2582]

ok I am in quere with ebay real person to tlak to them about it. thanks