Limit on selling personal items on eBay per year

[new-used-sales]

I am refurbishing my house and selling personal items ie smeg fridge freezer , mirrors , leather furniture , dining chairs , cabinets , double bed possibly  fitted wardrobes this is more than a £1,000

surely HMRC can see that from time to time there will be sellers wanting to refurbish there homes and clearly £1,000 per year is not enough to sell house contents without having to pay tax in the U.K. 

I will not be giving my items away cheap or free I worked hard paid for my furniture with my wages I have already paid tax on 

please advice 

[jckl1957]

There is not a limit to how many personal items you are allowed to sell in a year, or the value.

From January 2024, Ebay (and other selling platforms, Air bnb etc.) have to report your sales to HMRC if you sell more than 30 items or items to the value of about £1740 to HMRC.  You may be confusing the threshold at which sales are reported with the trading allowance which applies to traders/business sellers and is £1000.

If you are only selling unwanted items due to a house move, you won't have a tax liability.

(Separate rules apply if you sell single items or high value collections for £6000 or more when capital gains Tax may be applied.)

There are lots of threads about this in the forum, and advice and information from HMRC is easily available.

Edit

Having looked at your items for sale, it does look as if you are trading using this account - you have multiples of new items for sale and your name suggests a trader who should have a business account.

If HMRC look at your account, past sales, items you are selling etc. they would probably conclude you are trading.

It might be to your benefit to open a new private account to sell the items from your house refurbishment and change this account to a business account for selling the skincare products, double sockets etc.

[mattyboutique22]

This is all well & true, however selling personal items on eBay whether they’re used or purchased but never used for which we’ve already paid tax on is absolutely unjustified with the possibility of further tax threats.  
This is pure greed & control . How many times are we expected to pay tax on an item? 
what’s also unjust is that eBay will automatically report your sale to HMRC and require proof of ID to pass onto them. Regardless of whether you’re selling personal items or not. They just want their eyes on you.

Last time I checked this was “Totalitarianism“. 
its not ok, its not normal, its insane . It needs to stop

[pegr-834437]

Please correct me if I'm wrong but nothing has changed for a person selling personal items, they wont be paying any additional tax. This has come about as there are thousands of people now who are running businesses who either through lack of education on the subject or just cba do not pay the taxes they should rightfully pay. I'm sure we all complain when we see Amazon or some other site being located in Ireland or Luxemburg so they don't have to pay the correct amount of tax via a loophole but this move is to stop tax evasion which is not a loophole but agaisnt the law. 

Too many people are selling hundreds of items that they have bought to sell and dont pay what they should, this is the reason for the change, nothing else. If you (anyone) is just selling unwanted items around the house 99.99999% wont need to pay a single penny extra even if they sell 250 items.

[jckl1957]

If that is how you feel, write to your MP and suggest they change the law.

HMRC will not threaten to tax you on sales of your own personal items - there is no tax due on such sales.

However, if you have a large amount of sales, perhaps if the majority of your items are classed as new, or if it is clear that you are buying items and quickly 'flipping' them to make a profit, HMRC may send you a 'nudge' letter and ask you for information. (Not, initially, money.)

Ebay are obliged by law to pass details of your sales to HMRC.

Any suggestion of totalitarianism must be aimed at the state, not at Ebay and, as this is an Ebay forum, perhaps you need to make your complaint elsewhere.

[jonatjonatjonat]

Of course they do. Because people lie. 

HMRC don’t know what people are selling on eBay without information.

unfortunately as a society we are long past a percentage of sellers being honest with the tax that they are due to pay.

[happyshopper1982]

I have a separate trading account (which I also pay the £32 a month for) yet eBay will automatically restrict my personal selling account in about 7 days as they're insisting I upgrade to business. I have appealed but got the 'Computer says no' response, and reading a few discussions it seems there's no point wasting further time pursuing it. So when this happens I'll obviously just let this account go to pasture, which is a shame given I haven't broken any rules. Obviously there's no point having two business accounts, but ultimately I still want to sell my personal items and eBay is the obvious choice as it's the platform I'm most familiar with.

My question/concern is, if I sell my personal items on my eBay business, does HMRC automatically consider these taxable sales? Or is it just sales across both accounts relating to my NI they're concerned with? Obviously I could set up another personal account but would probably face the same issue down the line and potentially run the risk of being restricted across all accounts for breaching eBay T&C's by circumventing their initial restriction.

As I understand it, what eBay label a Business and what HMRC regard as business are separate things. As in HMRC can still come knocking on someone with a personal account if they're deemed to be trading? So if I sell personal items via my business account, providing a keep receipts and separate the sales on my SA it should be ok?

FWIW my personal account sells about 7-10 items a week, I only ever use about 1/3 the free listings (including 90-day/sell similar re-lists). I've sold about £11.5k worth of stuff this year but that's as I recently downsized and need the money to fund a house renovation and am fed up being surrounded by boxes/clutter. So I'm disappointed that despite falling well within their limits my account faces restriction.

[papso22]

HMRC will look at all sales associated with you NI number, irrespective of account.

You are right that HMRC looks at trading for the purposes of being taxed in a different way to ebay, ebay does not introduce the concept of profit or frequency for example.

I think Ebay's view more closely reflects trading as per consumer protection law, which doesn't care about tax. 

I do find it extraordinary that they are going after your private account given the huge number of blatant businesses using private accounts that they ignore reports on.

[happyshopper1982]

I agree, so many accounts selling multiples of the same as new items listed as private sellers. One thing that peeved me a few months ago is the number of adult magazines some sellers seemingly get away with selling. Yet I listed a load of very tame vintage art and photography magazines and they were all restricted for policy violations. Same happened when I tried listing unopened perfumes. Yet seemingly not an issue for other sellers with new or open bottles.

Within reason I'm just having a fire sale in the remaining time. Not to benefit from the lower fees, but predominantly because it will be a first rate PITA to transfer all my listings across.