Hi, I never said this at all.

What I am saying is that sometimes people have been selling for say at least 7 years the same thing over and over again eg art and antiques. They have clearly sold a lot of value. I have seen someone try to say that all this was an inheritance and they are simply selling it off. In such a case (high value) there will be a paper trail statement to prove it was inherited and if IHT was due, it was paid. But, if there is no paper trail, the HMRC are perfectly entitled to reasonably view it as trading activity and issue an assessment.

I agree it is really easy for private people to sell 30+ items and they are not forced to become business sellers. What I am simply saying is that if you do sell more than 30 items, you should realise that HMRC will get a statement of your sales. If you are entirely comfortable with these being personal items and it doesnt look like trading activity at all, then you should not worry and have no problem. However, if you sell more than 30 items and have been doing so for a number of years, and these items all look like the same type of thing and the activity reasonably looks like trading, then it would be a wise thing to submit tax returns accordingly before an assessment may be sent to you for backdated tax. If you are confident that you can prove that it is not trading eg an IHT statement showing you inherited particular items, then you have nothing to worry about. I am simply advocating that people are not over confident and they make sure they are ready.