I wonder when ebay will ask for national insurance numbers

[equinox-electronics]

In light of all this HMRC data collection ( which I'm a massive fan of, I pay my taxes ) I wonder when eBay will send out messages to accounts asking for N.I numbers? Saw an article earlier that states by 1st Jan next year, the sooner the better imo 

[sashab22]

Hi there, what's the limit?

[*vyolla*]

For residents of the UK, eBay is legally required to report both your sales transactions and certain personal or business information to His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC). eBay will report this information should you meet either of the following thresholds within the calendar year:

• Your total sales on eBay is equal to or more than £1,740 after deducting fees and commissions or taxes
• You complete 30 or more sales transactions on eBay (cancelled transactions are not included in the calculation)

Taken from this eBay guidance page, where you can find more info:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/help/account/regulatory/uk-digital-sales-reporting?id=5454&st=3&pos=1&query=U...

[geosacha007]

My pension company was hacked and people's data taken, which of course included NI.  And they did not have a history of losing customer's data as ebay does.

[vinylscot]

I'd like to say I'm surprised eBay hasn't already been asking for NINOs, but I'm not.

eBay's only weapon in this is to forbid those who exceed the thresholds from selling on the platform, until they supply their NINO. We know many of the bogus "private" sellers will already be way over the thresholds for this year.

However, as we all suspect, eBay want to get as much as they can from these sellers before their activity is curtailed, so I would imagine eBay will leave it as late as they can to ask for NINOs, assuming that some (many) sellers will simply refuse to provide them. Many of these sellers will be trying to sell as much as they can, as quickly as they can, while they are allowed to by eBay (knowing that they intend to leave eBay when their NINO is requested).

Yes, even without a NINO, the data is there, and it will still be reported, but will then require some manual intervention to marry up eBay sellers identities with their NINOs. We have heard how little resource is being committed to this by HMRC, so anything you can do to obstruct them will give you more time. These sellers may or may not be "caught" at some time in the future, and they know it is by no means certain that they will be.

[the_book_seekers]

Given how ebay is trying to entice sellers back to ebay I think the request for NINOs may come as late as they dare. People have indicated their unwillingness to hand over their insurance number to ebay which could make a further dent in their numbers. Of course Vinted et al may well suffer the same issue. 

[iluvneighbours]

Well that will put the cat amongst the pigeons!!

[equinox-electronics]

Ebay know that when the day comes to ask for national insurance numbers it will cause uproar. My guess is they will leave it until next January

[brindsey]

Rightly so it will cause uproar. These forums will be flooded. 

It's my guess they'll start trying to collate the NINos sooner rather than later, they daren't leave it too long.  Surprised they haven't started already.

[theelench]

I think ebay and other American owned sites will already have some idea of how much resistance there will be as the US govt. went down the same road several years ago.

The other site I sell on runs a "Welcome to ..." thread where new arrivals can announce themselves and their wares and it was noticeable that, for a year or two, there was a higher than usual influx of new sellers from the US.  Not huge numbers, but enough to be noticeable.

ATM my attitude is that if I'm going to have to give my NINO to any site I sell on, I'd rather give it to one that is owned and run from the UK, with UK citizens as directors.  So no overlapping of legal systems or jurisdictions and hopefully all data stored in the UK.

Although it will be ebay.uk that will ask for our NINOs, I can't help wondering where it will be stored and backed-up on ebays international network of servers.  Who exactly will have any oversight or control over it once ebay.inc is involved and how effective UK data protection laws and agencies will be in safe-guarding it once it has been 'off-shored' ?