How to read eBay statments!

[jlsa55]

Have been selling my own stuff, as aprovate seller, on eBay for some while.Now, am looking at how much I have earnt, due to the changes and HMRC. I don't earn anywhere near £1000 per year. BUT, it trying to look at how much I have earnt, I cannot seem to understand the eBay statement!

Opening funds (on 01 Oct) £0.00
Orders (Total minus fees) £23.31
Claims (Total net of fees and credits) £0.00
Refunds (Total net of fees and credits) £0.00
Payment disputes (Total net of fees and credits) £0.00
Postage labels -£8.82
Other fees £0.00
Adjustment £0.00
Purchases £0.00
Charges £0.00
Payouts -£14.49
Closing funds (moving to next statement) £0.00

Can anyone point me in the right direction for working out how much I have actually earnt please as I don't understand all the categories! Many thanks!

[jlsa55]

Sorry, private selller, not oprovate!!

[litp*records]

You may be getting confused about a couple of things.  £1k is the trading allowance for business sellers.

For private sellers, Ebay is sharing accounts with HMRC of anyone who has sold more than 30 items or 2000 euros worth in a calendar year.

Secondly, this is not based on your earnings (profit) but on your turnover.  Ie. It is based on the total amount of money you have received before any fees are subtracted, or purchasing of postage etc.

So in your case, your turnover at least for the report you have shared, is £23.31

[rjwilmsi]

If you are selling your own possessions for less than you bought them for then it doesn't matter how much you have sold because their is no tax payable and no requirement to report anything to HMRC. The £1000 number doens't apply as you are not trading.

Note, if selling your own possessions privately but for more than you paid for them then you could have capital gains tax to pay, even if it is not "trading" subject to income tax. But from the eBay statement shown that can't be the case here.

For others, the £1000 HMRC allowance is against turnover i.e. total gross sales. OP's figure of £23.31 is after fees, so I think their total gross sales is about £26, and if they were trading it would be the £26 figure to count against £1000.

[jlsa55]

Okay, thanks for all the replies. I don't earn £1000 per year and it is all my own stuff. Clearer now, thank you.

[keeptheroof · Accepted solution]

As a private individual, you have "earned" the profit you have made. Also as a private individual, you have no responsibility to keep records and don't need to register with the taxman. ( Won't argue about this so don't bother peps)

Having said that, and under that category, you would be liable to pay tax in certain situations. The most common being quoted here is if you are working and earn £12,571  - You are then liable to pay tax on all profits over the first £1,000 in the tax year.  Not the money sellers give you! but profits.

The point I'm making is you take all your expenses including the cost of your time based on the average hourly salary of £15.14 Hr (currently). It's unlikely that someone's hobby of selling unwanted stuff on eBay is ever going to be liable for tax.

Because even if they do come asking you to fill forms you have an endless list of costs you currently probably ignore associated with listing & dealing with eBay. I for example have 5 years of storage payments at over £100 a month I can throw at them. But most people have their time, printing costs,  packaging costs, transport costs if you drive to the PO. Hell, you could even claim for putting up shelves or a slice of the payment you pay to get online if you had to. The taxman knows this and if they can't even bother to investigate 25% of reported major tax fraud they are unlikely to spend more than a warning letter on even big eBay sellers who trading.

[seke2009]

Thank you for the very informative information.

Just so I understand this very clearly as if you are explaining this to a 10 year old  🙂 The £1000.00 limit a year is based on the funds that Ebay sends your account and not to included shipping, Ebay Fess and other costs?

Many thanks

Seke 

[keeptheroof]

Doesn't matter what eBay sends you. You pay tax on things like: money you earn from employment. profits you make if you're self-employed, including from services.

Unless the is a clear line showing you bought items for A and sold them for B it would be very difficult to prove profit was made.  It doesn't matter what info eBay gives the taxman, the taxman has to prove to a judge what profit you made and show that you owe the amount of tax they claim you own. No judge in the world is going to side with the taxman against a private person selling their unwanted items.

Profit is when everything else is taken out of the money given. If I buy something for £1 and sell it for £1000 as long as I can show I made no profit the taxman has no claim to make. 

[a45heaven]

Why is the OP's account they posted not showing any Fees they paid to ebay?

Total orders of £23.31 incurs a postage labels bill of £8.82 ?

Is that not a very high percentage?

[61stephenuk]

Could be items of clothing sold,no fees only postage to be deducted

[myriad*seller]

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@seke2009 wrote:

Thank you for the very informative information.

Just so I understand this very clearly as if you are explaining this to a 10 year old  🙂 The £1000.00 limit a year is based on the funds that Ebay sends your account and not to included shipping, Ebay Fess and other costs?

Many thanks

Seke 

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It's gross income

So the entire cost of the sales - what buyers paid you 

You do not deduct anything, Gross is the total amount you sold items for. 

[a45heaven]

Orders (Total minus fees) £23.31

So the entire cost of the sales - what buyers paid you 

If so then the ebay figure is meaningless then?

Or are you calling ebay as the buyers?

[papso22]

Buyers pay sellers what is on the listing, via Ebay's managed payments system.

The amount for the £1,000 threshold is what a seller sells for not what they receive from ebay as ebay deducts costs from that payment.  These costs are not allowed to be deducted for the purposes of the £1,000 calculation. 

Ebay provides lots of transaction and payment information   I am sure some of it is useful for something.

[a45heaven]

Thanks for the response.

I was trying to confirm as to what the OP stated regarding 

Orders (Total minus fees) £23.31 - No mention of the fees actually paid.

@myriad*seller 

then pointed out the ebay figure was NOT the required (by HMRC) Gross figure - So the entire cost of the sales - what buyers paid you 

You do not deduct anything, Gross is the total amount you sold items for.

As you put in the footnote ebay show a LOT of information, one could argue its compulsory information, diluted with other details in order to hide fees - which is the only  figure i wish to see.

Some may glean something of interest possibly.

But transparency has never been a hot topic here for many moons alas.

[seke2009]

Great thank you, this is still very confusing to me, I guess what I was trying to establish is when to stop listing personal items when the limit has been reached, so I wanted to work out if the £1000.00 limit is all the funds you recieved from buyers before Ebays fees, shipping costs ect, because if it is then reality is a personal seller won't recieve £1000.00 in profits but whatever the profits are when deducting the Ebay fees, shipping costs ect.

Now someone also mentioned that its not the figures that matters so much but the number of items you sell, 30 supposedly so the £1000.00 limit doesn't matter so this made me more confused.

Everything just sounds more complicated than it needs to be.

Many thanks

[a45heaven]

Its the value AND the numbers YOU sell as an individual totally. 

I haven't been told by any other selling site i sell on that they are to forward my own 'information' to HMRC, so unless all platforms forward that info, and some platforms are based overseas and may not be obligated to participate with HMRC, then the ebay info is partial at best.  

Say, if ebay was to be located in the EU - would they participate with HMRC?

ebay have been charging sellers a 'Regulatory Fee' for something for a few months now - but its quite secretive.

[keeptheroof]

This £1000 is total nonsense, HMRC has publicly stated there has not been any tax liability change for UK taxpayers. Furthermore, to be so would need to be an act of parliament. Some people here seem to think the tax office can decide tax laws, they can't. https://fullfact.org/economy/side-hustle-reporting-ebay-vinted-income-not-new-tax/

If you are selling personal items on eBay, the likelihood of you having to pay additional tax is almost zero. Please don't worry about this; if you do, call the tax office. Sure the taxman can snoop for people avoiding tax on eBay as it's an easy PR win to say they are doing that. They rely on news media to do their work by issuing comments that make headlines to scare people. But come on! they report they open 300,000 cases a year. How many eBay sellers are there? 18 million in 2022.   

[afindforyoushop]

Hi, I’m in the same situation and looking for the same answers. I believe what you earn was 23.31 and if you are making per year more than £1000 and you have to do your books you would then put 8.82 as a delivery cost

this is how I understand it

[papso22]

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@afindforyoushop wrote:

Hi, I’m in the same situation and looking for the same answers. I believe what you earn was 23.31 and if you are making per year more than £1000 and you have to do your books you would then put 8.82 as a delivery cost

this is how I understand it

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You need to upgrade your account to a business one, then look at the income tax situation.  Your costs will change.