Anyone would think that ebay are doing the business community a favour by exposing these charading private sellers and exposing them to HMRC scrutiny. Ebay are a typically lacklustre modern company with a shabby set of rules, morals and self justification.
Fees are too high for business sellers with very little seller support. True, in some cases, the sellers are to blame, so they should be banned but most often it is buyers chancing their arm and being supported 100% by ebay. The 80% off for private sellers is too generous, both in percentage terms and the number of listings. I would say a fair percentage ebay FVF fee for both private and business sellers would be 5 - 7%.
Ebay are under pressure from an understaffed and quite frankly not fit for purpose HMRC who are failing to do their job properly generally but are expected to produce more revenue for a government whose tax/benefit budget to about 40 billion out?
I assume ebay will send figures to HMRC, who will automatically produce tax demands. One thing is quite clear, they have neither the resources or judgement to do their job properly, so I suggest a lot of unjustified trouble ahead for those disgusting, cheating private sellers who have sold more than £2000 worth of their gear in a year:-)
