Year to date total before having to pay tax.

[tiggs-91]

Hi,

I'm a private seller and I sell used items from my attic on eBay.

I've sold over 30 items this year.

eBay sent me a message and a banner in April I believe it was saying I've reached the threshold 

(30 items or a total of £1740) so therefore I needed to provide my national insurance number. 

So I'm presuming that eBay is reporting my sales to HMRC as they got my national insurance number.

But then when I looked on Google search at how much can a person sell on eBay before having to pay tax, it says up to £1000 a year. 

So how much can the 'Year to date total' go up to before having to definitely pay tax? 

I'm getting really worried about this and it's confusing.

Please advise. 

[jonatjonatjonat]

I would suggest you read this first and come back if you still have questions

[lucy_farmer]

Please *don't* worry tiggs.

If it's all your own personal possessions, you won't have to pay any tax at all.

(unless you hit the Capital Gains threshhold of selling one single item for more that £6000.00 -which will be unusual on ebay!)

Yes ebay will have to send you info to HMRC, but they very probably won't do anything at all with it (they *might* have a human look at you as a random check, but if you're genuinely private selling, they won't find anything.)

The £1000.00 is a trading  allowance for people who are trading in a very small way; it's not a 'flogging your own stuff' allowance 😊

[papso22]

That is not actually a question that can be answered.

Your liability to tax depends on whether what you are doing counts as trading and the application of the trading allowance (the £1,000).

Just selling your old stuff from your loft is not trading and won't result in an income tax  liability.  The total could be thousands and still no tax would be due.

[sml192]

The important thing to note is that eBay's legal obligations as a 'Reporting Platform Operator' and your tax obligations as an individual are 2 separate things.  Just because eBay are reporting your sales doesn't necessarily mean that you are liable to pay any tax.  As long as you are only selling unwanted personal possessions then it is highly unlikely that you would need to pay any tax.

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

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/selling-goods-or-services-on-a-digital-platform

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/check-if-you-need-to-tell-hmrc-about-your-income-from-online-platforms#s...

[tiggs-91]

Thanks for clearing that up and putting my mind at rest mate. 

Regards.

[tiggs-91]

Thanks for clearing that up and putting my mind at rest. 

Regards.

[tiggs-91]

Thanks for clearing that up and putting my mind at rest. 

Regards.