eBay Is Dead

[pinball-fantasies]

I am thinking eBay as a selling platform is dead since the seller protection was added ? I wonder if eBay have notice the decline in sellers since new rules started . In my 20 years of selling on eBay Ive never seen it like this

I have 20 watchers on my account , most of them are still selling but their sales have fallen to almost to nothing over the last 2 months and a few sellers have gone from the platform , its like all the buyers have gone

I wonder if eBay have notice the fall in sales or do they really care anymore

Is eBay a sicking ship and now doomed ?

[lucy_farmer]

'You have then taken this stuff and decided to sell it. That is a business.'

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'Taken'? 

Nope, we've been given stuff (2nd hand, used stuff) by people who are dead . If those dead people didn't want us to have it they'd have left instructions to do something else with it. These are now *our* items. (whether we wanted them or not...!)

This is not 'business'.

HMRC are very clear that *personal possessions* are untaxable when sold - unless you hit the £6000.00 inheritance tax threshhold. And none of this stuff (in our case) is a single item- or a collection- worth anywhere near 1% of that!

'This would be what they are calling side hustles right now, and they are cracking down on.'

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Now ,I thought that 'side hustles' (a horrid phrase  🤢 for doing part-time self-employment) were business activites?

Which are frequently described as 'buying, making or growing things for sale' or 'providing services for payment'.

Inheriting a load of old tosh is none of the above.

I'm with @vinylscot  on this one ; I think you're purposefully using lots of cod-legalese to worry genuine private sellers that they're about to get stamped on by HMRC.  

When they're not going to be.

Though I do agree with you that AI will (eventually) get good enough to pick out and clamp-down on psuedo-private sellers who sell loads and loads of *new* things, loads of *similar* things and loads of consumables (which are logically impossible to be 2nd hand) That ain't a problem to me and many others on here... but winding up genuine and worried private sellers is cruel.

[akemp1]

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@lucy_farmer wrote:

Though I do agree with you that AI will (eventually) get good enough to pick out and clamp-down on psuedo-private sellers who sell loads and loads of *new* things, loads of *similar* things and loads of consumables (which are logically impossible to be 2nd hand) 

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Consumables don't need to be in 2nd hand condition to qualify as a genuine private sale.

For example my dad's printer broke so he bought a newer model and I sold his incompatible unused ink cartridge in new condition. These things happen but doesn't make it a business.

Similarly it's possible to make a business out of trading used items.

[storage.boutique]

I think you may have misunderstood me. I am simply saying that a great many peole are not as secure as they thought.

Your NI number goes to HMRC and they rake the data on eBay and make an assessment of what they think is going on. Personally I think that is something that should have been done years ago, but they can go back 7 years. If they cant find your self assessment, and they decide your feedback / trading history looks like a business, I think it would be very natural to send out an initial assessment based on that data. No rocket science there. Then it comes down to you providing the evidence that they are wrong. That is the absolutely normal process. My own father in law lost his business as he was (correctly) assessed for a vast sum of back tax as he had been paying casual labourers cash. 

The topic of this thread, is eBay is dead. I am simply pointing out what I think will be a very natural and easy evolution. 

If people have been filing self assessments, or like you they are very secure in their paper trail. and they think that their eBay activities doi not look like a business, then they will be absolutely fine. But I personally think eBay is going to get a major shake up in the coming months and years. I dont think it is dead, but I think the UK site will need to go through some very dark nights of the soul. 

I feel very sure that we will all agree that the Private Seller will bear the brunt on those dark nights and eBay, in order to keep its sizeable presence, will need to evolve towards offering something more for small and medium sized enterprises.

Personally, I think it should be heading over to Amazon HQ and asking how eBay can integrate into the fulfilment network better so that business sellers can fulfil eBay orders at the same cost as Amazon orders from their Amazon stock.  At the same time I think they really need to sharpen their pencil in terms of the eBay labels experience in connection to the Royal Mail - for example, a simple tweek to allow sellers to put weights and dimensions against variations would mean they would get a lot of sellers back to posting through eBay. 

I dont think eBay is dead, nor do I think the genuine private seller is, but if it looks like a business I suspect it is and I think HMRC might be reasonably expected to take the same initial stance. So I am simply advising people they may not be as secure as they think and now would be a good time to ensure that everything is declared and above board. The self assessment is not a difficult thing and a great many people wouldnt be paying tax anyway, but the idea of saying I inherited this stuff that I am now selling in vast tranches or honest this is my private collection when it very clearly is a business online, will not cut it I dont think.

Sorry if I scared you, but I do think it is time a lot of people had a reality check. My humble opinion is that as a country we are on our uppers and I am sure you know many people that don't seem to be paying the appropriate amount of tax. The net is closing in on them and people are only just beginning to squirm.

[lucy_farmer]

'For example my dad's printer broke so he bought a newer model and I sold his incompatible unused ink cartridge in new condition. These things happen but doesn't make it a business.'

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Oh yes, certainly. A handful of un-used bits and pieces is fine (various unwanted Christmas presents spring to mind!)

But ... e.g.   43 x new tubes of suntan lotion or lipstick?   Or 37 x packets of pet flea-treatment?  (you get the general idea...😀)

That's the sort of thing that (in the future)  a useful A.I. system may be able to spot. (I've always been slightly puzzled why ebay can't spot them already.....Seeing as how good they are at spotting private sellers and potential buyers exchanging contacts!)

[storage.boutique]

Exactly, that is a private seller. Less than 30 items a year or £1740 income and nobody is bothered at all.

It is really not up to eBay to decide the tax status of an individual. That is for the Revenue. But of course, if there have been huge loopholes such as this for many years, then it is their brand and platform that will suffer.

As I said, I dont think eBay is dead, but there will be some big changes. 

Maybe HMRC will fine eBay, I dont know. 

If someone has a big feedback, it says they sold a lot of items over the last year, they look like a business, the Revenue computer can quickly cast through their current listings and average the value of a sale. They can see how many unit sales the person has made on the feedback listing and from that public data and the NI number, send an initial estimated assessment of tax due. Of course, a cross check on the NI nuber will look to see if self assessments have been completed, that benefits have not been paid, and that additional NI pension contributions have been paid on any profits. It is then up to the seller to prove them wrong.

[lucy_farmer]

'.....or like you they are very secure in their paper trail.'

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There is no 'paper trail'.  ( not being a business seller, the only 'paper' bits I'm familiar with are reciepts)

Lots of advice has been given over the last year, to 'keep all your receipts' when sellling on ebay, in case the HMRC want to have a look at you.

There's no receipts/paper trail for inherited tosh. Some of it is 70 years old.

There's no reciepts for my/hubby's personal stuff either.  I don't suppose I'm unusual in throwing reciepts etc. away once the item is seen to fit, seen to work, has run out of warranty, or has been used for whatever purpose.

We'd all be up to our knees in scraps of paper otherwise.....

And anyway, what would a receipt prove? Keeping receipts only proves that you bought something. Not what you intended to do with it.....

[storage.boutique]

Looking at your feedback transactions, you dont really have much to worry about. 

A paper trail for someone that is selling a large volume of items and then trying to say it is inherited will have a probate statement as to what it was valued at for tax purposes. If there is no probate it is deemed to have been valueless. If it is valueless there is no tax deduction available. So no paper trail and everything is taxable less costs.

If you are a collector, you will have purchased the item and that is where there is a receipt. This is in the instance of where someone sells a lot and it clearly looks like a business online. If you buy a big box of vinyls for example, as a job lot, and then sell off the ones you dont want you must allocate the cost of the purchase against the sales and declare. The Revebue may disagree with how you have allocated that cost but that is a after process after the initial assessment and all the paperwork available is produced.

Ignorance is no defence and either is not having paperwork.

Best to always do it properly, declare everything over the limits and there will be no problem. As I say, on your numbers of sales, I dont think you will have an issue.

[vinylscot]

You are trying to dig your way out of your own little hole, but you are still clearly wrong on most points.

Firstly, you have no idea what @lucy_farmer  or any other individual is selling. You don't know if that is their only account, or their principal account, and you have no way of knowing how and why any seller came into possession of the items they are selling.

Secondly, there is no tax liability for selling off your own personally owned items, even of these were acquired by means of bequests. (There are one or two exceptions, but in general, this is the case, especially for the vast majority of genuine private sellers.)

Thirdly, very few collectors will have receipts for every item in their collection. Keeping receipts, if anything, would more likely be a feature of a business seller. Some of my thousands of records were purchased by me well over fifty years ago; many others were gifts. Of course there will be no receipts for these. That is the nature of collections, and is generally accepted, although it is a question which may well be asked.

The case of purchasing a large box of records, keeping some, and then selling the rest, would be trading, and may require to be reported, depending on the sums involved. Selling a genuine collection, however, would not. (Again, if it were a discrete collection, it may be treated as one item for CGT purposes, but this is rare.)

The majority of your post is simply defensive nonsense. You've been caught out baselessly scare-mongering, and instead of bowing out gracefully, you have decided to double down. This  does not reflect well on you.

[storage.boutique]

Thanks but I stand by the detailed posts I have already put up.

In terms of @lucy_farmer  you are correct, but I was discussing the seller account that she was posting from. I also have multiple accounts but only one Limited company.

In terms of personally owned items I think we have beaten that to death. If you are selling a single item, we agree, but we talked about someone selling 37 bottles of sun tan lotion. The sun tan lotion may be a personal item and HMRC may agree that they are not a business, but if I was that seller I wouldnt be taking that risk.

What I said over and over again is that it is simpler to do a self assessment than to suffer an inspection. I said that if HMRC were to look at some personal selling accounts then they might reasonably assume they are businesses. If they assume that and send you an assessment, I said it is much harder to come up with the information after that than it is to do a self assessment in the first place. 

The question on this thread was is eBay dead. I say no, but now that NI numbers are going in to HMRC I personally think that a lot of assessments will be going out. I never mentioned CGT but I think if your eBay account looks like a business to the public, then HMRC are reasonably entitled to believe it is. 

If you dont have a purchase receipt because you got something 50 years ago, means the cost was around zero anyway for tax purposes - but you can argue that with them.

Not scaremongering, a little thought about what is coming next is all I suggest. If you are confident in your activities on eBay there is really nothing to worry about. As I said before, up to you.

[vinylscot]

We have done this to death. It has now been done to death for over six months on these forums in multiple threads. You are the ONLY poster who is sticking to your totally untenable pronouncements.

There have been posts from eBay employees, HMRC employees, acknowledged experts, and 100% dependable eBay members, many quoting precise statements from relevant authorities (including screenshots), none of whom have advocated your ridiculous over-abundance of caution (to put it mildly).

Could it be that you are right, and everyone else is wrong???  

No.

[jonatjonatjonat]

Personally, I think it should be heading over to Amazon HQ and asking how eBay can integrate into the fulfilment network better so that business sellers can fulfil eBay orders at the same cost as Amazon orders from their Amazon stock

The only way this would happen is if eBay gave Amazon a rocket ship load of cash.

I’ve said this on a couple of threads now. why would Amazon match fees for a MFN order with an FBA order? The whole point of them being higher is to make selling via Amazon the most appealing method!

[thepillenwerfer]

Some sort of tie-up with Amazon really would be "The end of e-Bay" as, presumably, the prices of goods on e-Bay would rise to those on Amazon.

[varl131]

Even more important -this would create a near world monopoly on online selling.

[storage.boutique]

Agreed - it has been done to death. I have read all those posts and seen the screenshots and cant find anything I would disagree with. Its really strange, I clicked on your link and it says you are a Limited company. So not sure why you would be so tetchy about the whole thing. Its only a good natured debate. 

Unless you also have a personal seller account selling the same thing, even though you are a Director of a Limited company. That would be naughty. But there is lots of opportunity out there for HMRC if they choose to look. The AI will sort it out for us I guess (or not).

[vinylscot]

Of course I can have a personal account and a business account. There is nothing "naughty" about it.

I could even be selling the same type of product on both accounts, and that still wouldn't be naughty. One account would be selling items from my own personal collection, and the other would be selling items which had been bought by the limited company, with the intention of re-selling. However, I would never have the same actual item for sale on both accounts - that's where it starts to get dodgy.

It's a very common situation, with which HMRC are perfectly familiar. I have full documentation for all items owned by the limited company, and all my accounts and taxes are in order. HMRC has been made aware of the private selling account through my annual tax return, and my accountant is happy with my systems of keeping the two completely separate. 

Please stop trying to manufacture problems which don't exist. All these scenarios were dealt with in great depth when the possible issues came to light. No offence meant, but you are highly unlikely to come across something new, six months later.

You're not scaring me, but you might be worrying some less well-informed people unnecessarily.

[edwardian-dreams]

Definitely dead 

no views no watchers no sales

even with promotions 

dead as a dodo until they find it in their hearts to let you have a sale or two and you get all excited and think yeah it’s back to normal lol

[gjalp]

You are making assumptions. If you actually looked at my listings you would see I am a business, I have been a business for over 20 years and submit tax returns every year, right from the get go. I sell MY items on a private ID, not this ID.

[gjalp]

I could describe the inherited items as stuff or ‘tat’ 😂 only my paternal grandmother’s estate went through probate and my half brother and step mother got the house and half a million each. My grandmother hated me so I got the rubbish 🤣 which includes watches that don’t work! The only thing I really wanted was some of the photos of myself and my sister when we were young as my step mother threw my dad’s ones out!

[crn303]

Being a past CEO, I confirm the two greatest assets to my and any ones else's successful company was my staff and my loyal customer base.

Without BOTH you are certain to fail.