andyman7 Posted January 3 Share Posted January 3 (edited) 3 hours ago, rab said: I totally agree with you but I guess the weak part in that statement is how do you define "personal stuff". Yes it means stuff you have but no longer want/need, but anything you buy becomes your personal stuff. I could buy a loco on eBay one week, and sell it the next week making a profit, but I bought it, so therefore it was mine, albeit only for a few days The tax code is full of hundreds of weak areas, and armies of accountants and lawyers trying to interpret it. Did you have a sandwich provided by your employer at work? Guess what, there are pages of guidance on deciding whether that is a 'taxable benefit in kind'. In the case you describe above, if you bought a model with intent to sell at a profit then legally the profit less costs is potentially taxable. Can they examine your mind for 'intent'? You might have bought it on impulse as a 'good buy' and then realised you can't afford it - is there a moral obligation to accept a lower price to avoid the fear of 'profiteering'? Can you offset that 'profit' on the other model you sold for £10 less than you paid? We should all pay out taxes, but businesses are taxed on profit only less the costs of their overall business, people are getting hung up on the 'tax' for a single item rather than understanding that the tax picture applies to your overall affairs. All sorts of caveats apply - are you a business? Are you registered for VAT? Do you earn below the tax thresholds (not just the £1000 trading one but the overall personal allowance? Whose tax affairs apply (my son is too young to have an ebay account so if he wants to sell something I have to use the family account). All I can say is if everyone turns into Ned Flanders and starts filing tax returns 'just in case' then the HMRC will soon be overwhelmed - they have no interest whatsoever in casual model railway sales. The whole thing reminds me a bit of how people dealt with Covid rules - some people threw parties regardless whilst others stayed indoors afraid to go to the chemist for aspirin because they had already been out for their hour of exercise that day and worried about getting arrested; in truth one has to understand and interpret them and make a decision because until and unless (God forbid) we end up in a police state they are not going to interrogate your conscience. I can see people who might have sold online now think 'well I'd better not bother because we might have the Revenue asking questions' - which is why I really dislike this whole media scare approach. Edited January 3 by andyman7 3 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
APOLLO Posted January 3 Share Posted January 3 If you or your descendants etc are selling your model railway (etc) collection etc that has been built up over the years may I suggest you take time dated photos of your layout / collection etc (perhaps overall photos and not loads of individual ones) to "prove" (or at least try to) that the said collection / layout or even books in a book case are bought not for resale but as a hobby. Not sure if this is a worthwhile action to take. But I have, for insurance purposes. Brit15 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Hodgson Posted January 3 Share Posted January 3 1 hour ago, andyman7 said: Did you have a sandwich provided by your employer at work? Is there still any evidence ? 😉 1 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
berwicksfinest Posted January 3 Share Posted January 3 Picking up on something that has been puzzling me !! The missus who works in a retail industry where they had a whatsapp group chat, that I stress was for internal employees only! they shared images of known shoplifters (backed up by the store CCTV footage) so there was no misunderstanding. So that all employees had a reference of who was coming instore to lift something. After a management change, this was promptly stopped, citing breaking GDRP So question being, how is this a problem, but your ebay transactions are free to be passed on to HMRC 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators AY Mod Posted January 3 Moderators Share Posted January 3 8 minutes ago, berwicksfinest said: how is this a problem, but your ebay transactions are free to be passed on to HMRC It'll be somewhere in the T&Cs we all accept but hardly ever read. 3 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonhall Posted January 3 Share Posted January 3 (edited) Isn't this analogous to your bank reporting the interest earned on your savings to the HMRC so that they can deduct the required tax? In my example its a bit more black and white, as if its not in an ISA its taxable after £1000 (or whatever is appropriate tax band you might be in) then your 'income' is obviously taxable. The difference is that on an ebay sale will be if its a trading activity vs personal collection disposal, and I'm sure that the HMRC will start with the biggest values and highest frequencies, and if your toy train dealing activities end up in the top 90% of ebay transactions in the UK, perhaps you should consider what you are buying a bit more carefully! jon Edited January 3 by jonhall 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium jjb1970 Posted January 3 RMweb Premium Share Posted January 3 Government departments aren't the same as other entities when it comes to accessing data. HMRC have legal rights (obligations for other entities to provide data) and the government has a giant information hoover in GCHQ monitoring communications. 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
berwicksfinest Posted January 3 Share Posted January 3 8 minutes ago, AY Mod said: It'll be somewhere in the T&Cs we all accept but hardly ever read. I wouldn't be surprised !! but fine print is usually more fine than my eyes😄 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Hodgson Posted January 3 Share Posted January 3 Ebay classify their users as private or business. If they think your activities look like business, they may contact you to query your status. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Hodgson Posted January 3 Share Posted January 3 11 minutes ago, AY Mod said: It'll be somewhere in the T&Cs we all accept but hardly ever read. It probably is, but it doesn't need to be if the Government has over-riding statutory powers - which the taxman generally does. Even if they were to contract with you to do something illegal like facilitating tax evasion, the contract wouldn't stand up in court. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
andyman7 Posted January 3 Share Posted January 3 Yes - one of the allowed reasons to pass on data in compliance with GDPR is to meet a legal requirement/comply with the law. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Hal Nail Posted January 3 RMweb Premium Share Posted January 3 3 hours ago, Michael Hodgson said: Is there still any evidence ? 😉 I am about to lecture my lot about this. Sending me an expense claim with "team drinks" slapped all over it isn't massively helpful when I file our returns saying there were no benefits in the year! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators AY Mod Posted January 3 Moderators Share Posted January 3 7 minutes ago, Hal Nail said: an expense claim with "team drinks" From experience that's just a statement of fact. 1 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold BoD Posted January 3 RMweb Gold Share Posted January 3 4 minutes ago, AY Mod said: From experience that's just a statement of fact. That explains a lot of the Mod’s posts. 1 5 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium njee20 Posted January 3 RMweb Premium Share Posted January 3 (edited) 3 hours ago, berwicksfinest said: I wouldn't be surprised !! but fine print is usually more fine than my eyes😄 Surely you can see the difference between a group of people sending photos around on WhatsApp saying “this guy’s dodgy” and a registered company sharing data with the Government…? Edited January 3 by njee20 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick G Posted January 3 Share Posted January 3 I know it's a serious matter but this made me chuckle on X (formerly Twitter) today. By the way it's a spoof account so not real. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium TheQ Posted January 3 RMweb Premium Share Posted January 3 22 hours ago, YT-1300 said: I think you've been on the mushrooms, speaking from experience of working for HMRC in the past. 25 years ago I wasn't even earing 6k. 17k was a decent wage back then. Just looked it up the UK average salary in 1999 25 years ago... £17,000, 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Hodgson Posted January 3 Share Posted January 3 21 minutes ago, Hal Nail said: I am about to lecture my lot about this. Sending me an expense claim with "team drinks" slapped all over it isn't massively helpful when I file our returns saying there were no benefits in the year! Colleague of mine was awarded a prize for the "most original supporting evidence on an expenses claim" for a beermat stapled to a menu as the restaurant didn't issue receipts! 3 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium TheQ Posted January 3 RMweb Premium Share Posted January 3 Better than one guy who claimed his allowance for clothing for working in an area of significantly different temperature. ( Saudi) he got caught cos it was checked .. Wet suits aren't needed by radar engineers... 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
letterspider Posted January 3 Share Posted January 3 This is a political decision. Governments in the EU are currently chasing up the short term property rental market, AirBnB etc, as the potential revenues in those cases are huge amounts. However to avoid those companies complaining of greed and hypocrisy, the Tax rules have now also to be applied fairly to other businesses such as eBay etc I don't think this will work out in the long run (see below) and I don't think anyone selling trains, clothes, or anything else second hand that they want to get rid of will need to worry (unless they actually are trading in high volumes). If HMRC demand tax on the sales amount I can see individuals trading as self employed and demand tax relief on everything from internet, heating, seller fees etc. especially as the vast majority of models, clothes, cars are depreciating in value and selling at relative loss. After all of that I can see very little of anything will remain for HMRC But HMRC will just assume most individuals will not be keeping their receipts and will just yield to automated tax demands, however if thousands and thousands of tax rebate requests start to pour in, it will cost a fortune for them to service these new proposals with a threshold of just £1000 and I expect very quickly it will rise towards £5000 1 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
APOLLO Posted January 3 Share Posted January 3 Brit15 2 4 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Hal Nail Posted January 3 RMweb Premium Share Posted January 3 1 hour ago, AY Mod said: From experience that's just a statement of fact. Oh undoubtedly - but what sort of cretin volunteers facts to HMRC! Reminds me of a mate who got stopped driving a band's white van across the border into Holland. As they were lined up one by one they said "we are here on business" until they got to the drummer. He grinned and said "and for the blow". They got very, very thoroughly searched. 6 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
YT-1300 Posted January 3 Share Posted January 3 (edited) 1 hour ago, TheQ said: Just looked it up the UK average salary in 1999 25 years ago... £17,000, And was a good wage back then, not every one earns the average salary. I know a fair few folk who don't even earn 20k even now! Edited January 3 by YT-1300 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium spamcan61 Posted January 3 RMweb Premium Share Posted January 3 47 minutes ago, Hal Nail said: Oh undoubtedly - but what sort of cretin volunteers facts to HMRC! Reminds me of a mate who got stopped driving a band's white van across the border into Holland. As they were lined up one by one they said "we are here on business" until they got to the drummer. He grinned and said "and for the blow". They got very, very thoroughly searched. Bit like Lemmy getting fired from Hawkwind in a very similar situation lol. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold melmoth Posted January 3 RMweb Gold Share Posted January 3 1 hour ago, spamcan61 said: Bit like Lemmy getting fired from Hawkwind in a very similar situation lol. I think this is an excellent early contender for "Thread Drift of the Year". Only another 363 days to go. 1 4 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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