Thoughts on the HMRC and National Insurance Number issue

[gnosemalf]

I'm no longer selling due to Simple Delivery and I am sure that that will affect eBay's revenue from private sellers as well as have a knock-on effect from people buying less due to having less to spend. I should just forget it but the whole thing is starting to feel a bit Big Brother and living rent-free in my head. Likewise, the topic of HMRC demanding eBay sellers' National Insurance Numbers is eating away at me.

If one analyses how often we pay tax and how much, it is both sickening and frightening. When we buy a new item, we have probably already paid VAT on it. If we, as private sellers, want to sell it, we are unlikely to be doing so at a profit and I think that in many cases (more often than not for me), we are doing so in order to upgrade to a newer or better item of the same type, if not to have money to spend on other things. By limiting how much we can sell without paying tax and not taking this into consideration seems unfair.

I'm chewing this over as I'm typing so it may not come across completely rationally but isn't double-dipping tax going to result in a downward consumer spiral. Just as I have a box of stuff which I am unable to list due to Simple Delivery which means that I will have less to spend, if I were to sell stuff, I'd be very careful not to reach the limit for HMRC reporting (monetary or 2½  items per month!). I am sure that there are reasons inspiring the Treasury but a nation's economic health is basically about the movement of money - not how much money the government can suck out of the economy to fund white elephant projects that nobody is interested in. I think that there is an air of misery which may be explained by economic incompetence or even ideology.

I have already started to give some stuff away that I would normally try to sell because it isn't worth the hassle. I'm not saying that to virtue signal, I've often given items away which have been impractical to sell, but when money stops moving, it isn't called stagnation for nothing. Far worse is stagflation when prices also increase and that is where we are heading.

Apologies for rambling but I have never felt so despondent about eBay and I think that eBay may be a litmus test for the bigger picture. I once heard a famous economist say that when a big company removes the plants from the foyer, you know that they are in financial trouble - it's the little things that give it away.

[*vyolla*]

It's the kind of items that you sell that decide whether you should be paying tax on them, or not.

A private seller is one who is just selling off their own personal items such clothes from their wardrobe, bits from their loft/garage etc. There's no tax for them to pay (unless they sell one item or a job lot collection for over £6,000, then Capital Gains tax may be payable).

A Business seller is someone who buys or makes items to sell on.  They need to be registered as a business to meet the requirements of UK law. They need to declare income to HMRC once they reach £1,000 worth of sales.

[gnosemalf]

So, why does eBay have to report private sales over £1740? Even if the requirement is benign, the dragnet of data is intimidating as the HMRC has in some way acknowledged given that they felt the need to clarify 'misinformation'.

It's as if government agents were going around counting people's windows and then felt the need to announce, 'don't worry, we aren't going to be taxing your windows'.

[jonatjonatjonat]

Because of an agreement among countries in the OECD. That was the reporting threshold agreed upon.

why? Because to continue your analogy some people like to hide their windows.

[*vyolla*]

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@gnosemalf wrote:

So, why does eBay have to report private sales over £1740?

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All of the online selling platforms do, it's not an eBay decision, all explained here:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/help/account/regulatory/sales-reporting/uk-digital-sales-reporting?id=5454

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@gnosemalf wrote:

It's as if government agents were going around counting people's windows and then felt the need to announce, 'don't worry, we aren't going to be taxing your windows'.

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Omigosh, you're right, it's exactly like that. Not.

[thepillenwerfer]

My "Thoughts on the HMRC and National Insurance Number issue" are that it isn't an issue.  I know I'm not fiddling so have nothing to fear; I'd have been quite happy to give mine when I first registered with e-Bay.

Frankly I'd like to see the tax dodgers, benefit cheats and "I'm not a business" 'Private' Sellers who certainly aren't just selling their own excess items get clobbered.

You also mention Simple Delivery.  That is certainly a problem as it currently stands for sellers of some items, mainly very small, large or valuable ones, but it hasn't bothered me yet.  Again somebody who is selling their own things that they no longer need or want will be selling things of all sizes and values so SD would only prevent them from selling some of them.

[gnosemalf]

How is that continuing my analogy? If there isn't going to be a window tax, what does it matter how many windows one has and what would be the point in hiding them.

[gnosemalf]

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@*vyolla* wrote:

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Omigosh, you're right, it's exactly like that. Not.

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Right, so you are a bit pedantic about analogies, then?

So, the government are checking up on how much of their unwanted goods private sellers are selling but then feel the need to announce, 'don't worry, we aren't not going to be taxing your sales of unwanted goods'.

Is that close enough?

[jonatjonatjonat]

Alright. Let me make it a bit clearer. SOME eBay users are selling brand new goods on private accounts. They should in fact be a business.

they may not be paying what they owe to HMRC. THOSE sellers should be paying tax. 

because of these bad actors, the approach taken is to ask everyone who sells above a certain amount to provide their NI number. But the vast majority (ie those that are just selling off their old second hand stuff) don’t need to worry.

[jonboselr]

Just sell £1700 on ebay then find somewhere else to sell anything that goes over the limit. 

[edwardian-dreams]

As always a few bad actors enable the govt to sweep every one in  ie like you can’t take your 200ml of shampoo in your bag when travelling in case you blow up a plane 

Thankfully some uk airports have done away with all them rules now phew what a palava  

in general I consider it a draconian intrusive measure what they’ve done 

they could have thought of fine tuning their powers to root out the sellers of thousands of pounds of brand new items and not fret people who didn’t  needed to be fretted iyswim 

and many who shouldn’t be fretted are 

[gjalp]

There are exceptions. I sometimes sell new items but they are in general just the one. New items I sell are often things gifted that I haven’t used or where Ive upgraded something and then found cheaper elsewhere and missed the return window/lost the receipt/found I messed up on measurements and cba to return or a sale item of clothing that Ive later decided isnt for me.

[moonlight-rhapsody]

"Just sell £1700 on ebay then find somewhere else to sell anything that goes over the limit."

All ecommerce platforms are required to send the same data to HMRC.  If platforms like ebid, Vinted etc haven't yet done it, it's because they have until 31 January 2026 to provide the information.  It's data from the calendar year 2024 that has to be provided, so in any case it's too late to change platforms to try and avoid the threshold.