Can I go over my 30 item early limit with being taxed

[5607ellis]

So recently I’ve been selling my collection of retro video games which I’ve built up since I was a kid as I’m moving house and want to declutter. I’ve now reached my yearly 30 item limit and have made around £1700. I’ve sent my national insurance number to eBay as requested. As I’m a private seller can I still continue to sell my items as I have around another 60 gaming items to sell or will I be taxed on further sales? How does eBay/the inland revenue decide who is a private seller and who is a business which should be taxed. EBay’s policy on this kind of thing seems very unclear 

[susapric-68]

Selling your private collection is ok, the 30 items/£1700 is the limit that eBay has to report you to the HMRC. If it's a personnel collection then you're ok and can sell over that

[wintersdawn1]

Example — selling unwanted items

You’re clearing out your attic and decide to sell your unwanted items using online marketplaces. None of the items you sell are worth more than £6,000.

It’s unlikely that you’ll need to tell us about this income or pay any tax, no matter how many items you sell.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/check-if-you-need-to-tell-hmrc-about-your-income-from-online-platforms#s...

• If you are selling unwanted personal possessions such as old toys or clothes, this would not be classed as trading or miscellaneous income, and there is usually no tax to pay. In some circumstances there may be capital gains tax when selling valuable items such as jewellery, this is covered in our flowchart.

https://www.litrg.org.uk/news/selling-online-make-sure-you-keep-clear-records

Do I have to share information with HMRC?

From January 2024, new UK digital sales reporting rules require digital platforms like eBay to share information with them. However, this reporting doesn’t change your tax obligations.

On eBay, this should only affect newly registered accounts in 2024, which will extend to all accounts in 2025.

eBay will only report if you pass certain yearly sales thresholds:

• If your total sales on eBay exceed €2000, or roughly £1740, after fees.

• If you complete 30 or more sales transactions on eBay.

In general, selling personal items is not taxed if they’re below £6,000 and you’re not selling as part of a business.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sellercentre/selling/selling-online-and-hmrc

[lucy_farmer]

If you are a genuine private seller selling off your own stuff that you've had for years, you should be just fine. There is no financial limit for selling your own stuff (unless you make a single sale of over £6000.00 ; but I don't know anybody brave enough to try that on ebay 😱)

As long as the things you are selling are not 'Brand New' , and not multiples of the same thing , you're OK.

Once your details are passed to HMRC, whether or not they take a closer look at you is anybody's guess. But they'll also be looking for evidence of people who 'buy to sell' .

So evidence in your ebay account of buying  things, if you immediately flogged them on, as well as selling would probably come into the equation.

HMRC would be looking for accounts selling lots of brand new stuff, loads of the same new things, 'choose your size', 'pick your colour',  'consumables' (which are, logically, difficult to be second-hand) etc..

People keep saying 'keep your receipts'...... well , I dunno about you, but when I buy something *for me* as soon as it becomes evident I don't need to take it back, the receipt goes in the bin!

And receipts for things I bought years ago , went in the bin years ago 😂

Basically, if you're genuinely not trying to pull a fast one you'll be fine.........

[jckl1957 · Accepted solution]

Ebay don't have a policy - they are a selling platform, not a tax collector.

They have to report the sales of all UK sellers who sell 30 items or more.

Then, HMRC decide what, if anything, to do with the information.

There is not a '30 limit'.  Private sellers can sell as many items as they wish.  As long as you are not trading, so buying items to sell on for a profit, or monetising a hobby like knitting baby blankets, the money you make from selling is not taxable income.

[t32997]

Everyone keeps saying you should be fine, and the official government tax calculator says:

"Personal possessions you sell for less than £6,000 are not subject to tax"

"You do not need to tell HMRC about this income"

BUT then people on here start saying "I've just received a letter from HMRC which requests all sales info up to April 2023" and you look at their listings and its just 100 listings of obvious regular household stuff with maybe only 50 items sold not even totalling £2000. Not just one seller but many private sellers like this.

The letters have also been saying "we have information that shows you've earned income from online marketplace sales up to the tax year ending 5th April 2023. You need to tell us about this income as you may owe tax".

Which means either the digital sales reporting are breaking their one year promise by handing over data from several years before it started or HMRC are betraying us by threatening us with fines if we don't tell them everything now after going over the digital sales reporting limits.

It's not right when HMRC have clearly always told us the opposite by stating "YOU DO NOT need to tell HMRC about this income".  😡😡😡

[lucy_farmer]

'BUT then people on here start saying "I've just received a letter from HMRC which requests all sales info up to April 2023" and you look at their listings and its just 100 listings of obvious regular household stuff with maybe only 50 items sold not even totalling £2000. Not just one seller but many private sellers like this.'

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The letter that some sellers have received is a generic sort of letter that HMRC will send to anybody who they even slightly suspect of pulling a fast one....

If you're genuinely *not* trying to pull the wool, just tell HMRC so!  And tell them they're welcome to have a good firkle in your bank account and online selling account....

If you're telling the truth, you'll be fine.

[t32997]

I'm sorry but if they clearly told us "YOU DO NOT NEED TO TELL US" that should be their guarantee that we don't need to.

Otherwise it would have said "YOU STILL MIGHT NEED TO TELL US" in which case I may have not chosen to sell anything on here in the past (which I am choosing to do now) because I don't trust them and as proved they cannot be trusted.

[lucy_farmer]

'I'm sorry but if they clearly told us "YOU DO NOT NEED TO TELL US" ......'

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yeah, but , if you're genuine, you *dont *need to!

(But if you *are* taking the P income tax-wise , it *is* best to tell them before they start investigating....!)

ebay will send them your details (because ebay have no choice in the matter...) and *if* HMRC don't like the look of you (from that initial 'file') they'll then have a closer look.

That will tell them if they need more info from you, or not.

If you have been ripping HMRC off, you *can* expect to get a financial rocket.

If you're genuinely selling your own clobber,  you. will. be. fine.

[t32997]

Hmm... I don't think you're even wanting to understand what I said, but I understand that you're just basing your opinions on hope -you hope not a single innocent person gets a letter and hope they don't have to go to great lengths just to prove their innocence.

[papso22]

Ebay and other sites gave HMRC sales information voluntarily before digital reporting came in.

[t32997]

So what's your point?

[papso22]

You were implying that ebay had provided information using the digital reporting rules that started on 1st Jan 2024, incorrectly. 

My point was that they didn't.

Also, the letters people are receiving now are very unlikely to be the result of reports under the regulations as so far the reports just cover part of the tax year 23/24.

There is also a difference between needing to  volunteer information to HMRC and needing to respond to their enquiries.

You strike me as someone who opens a new account just to stir things up.

[t32997]

---

@papso22 wrote:

You were implying that ebay had provided information using the digital reporting rules that started on 1st Jan 2024, incorrectly. 

---

I would rather you don't accuse me of implying things.

[vinylscot]

I really don't think we need to get into all this again. It's been covered many, many times on these forums.

Do what you like. Don't take any notice of the many well-informed and sensible people who have taken their time and effort to reassure the many people in your situation.

You're simply trying to stir up anxiety, where none should exist for genuine private sellers selling their own personal possessions or collections. Please stop.

[t32997]

This is a truly stupid reckless situation the governments got us into.

I'm sorry but I just want to list my items (that I have a right to list as a private seller) 110% hassle free from HMRC, no fear, no letters, no records to keep, no forms to fill in, ABSOLUTELY NO HOMEWORK unless they want to pay me by the hour as much as a decent accountant costs, which is expensive and would take me forever.

In fact I would much rather show them ALL my listings before I list them so that any issue they have is ironed out beforehand. After all, they claim they have computers that can do it all that automatically.

Meanwhile I simply will not list whilst we remain in this digital sales reporting programme and you all fail to convince me it's safe.

[lucy_farmer]

'This is a truly stupid reckless situation the governments got us into.'

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

OK...... I'll bite.....😶

This situation is not the idea of the UK Govt.

It is a Multi-National response to online money systems being used to launder funds.

There is an organisation called the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) which is formed of financial authorities from about 38 countries: basically the whole, western civilised world.

This organisation has put rules in place  that *every* online selling site (ebay, eb*d, etsy, Vin ed , Farcebook, etc etc) , every online 'renting' site (airB+B etc) every online taxi/delivery site (Uber, Deliveroo etc) has to follow in every country of the OECD.

The overt aim and object is to stop money-laundering. (Though I imagine the 'side effect' of getting a good look into everybody's bank account won't upset the financial authorities too much!..)

If you can't cope with the new rules, you'll have to stop selling online and go back to putting a card in the post office window and only using cash.

Because every online selling site will have the same reporting duty.

It's not ebay's fault (makes a change I know..😆) if ebay could ignore it, I'm pretty sure they would..

It's not HMRC's fault (this has just given them a whole load more to deal with)

And it's not solely the fault of the UK govt either....

It's the result of officialdom's computing systems catching up with private commercial companies' computer systems. It's just ongoing technological developement.

And it's not going to go away.

[vinylscot]

OP only created this account yesterday, and may possibly be one of the many "disrupters" who have been posting on here recently with no interest at all in facts or answers. They simply want to cause nuisance. I kick myself regularly for rising to their bait.

[lucy_farmer]

Yep.... time I stopped 'biting'! 😂

[t32997]

Sorry, what are you telling me? The government are not in control of our own country anymore and the OECD forced their control over us completely out of the blue? I doubt it.

I'm sure if they had any sense they could say we don't want to be part of it anymore, it's not worth messing up the economy as it happily was before, just for the sake of catching a few fictitious money launderers.