Ebay Business sellers?

Question

Anyone understand the Tax implications of registering as a Business seller on Ebay? Is there anything else I need to be aware of if I register?

Answer 1

Income is income, regardless of whether your channel of selling is your own website, or eBay.  Failing to give the government its chunk of your income is serious in any country.

Answer 2

Ebay is a clear source to buy and sell without being officially recognised as someone conducting a business.  What Ebay has done is to protect themselves from being party to thousands of non declared businesses and frankly, the need to register as either a personal seller or a business seller just had to come.  Its also to protect the thousands of businesses in the UK that struggle and have to pay business rates, rents and tax on income. If you are on Ebay to buy and sell as a business, then you should be recorded as such.  HMR&C have every right to invesitigate any seller on Ebay and this need to register just makes some people one step ahead as far as being legitimate.  Obviously, hand in hand with registering as a business seller comes the need to advise HMR&C of your buisness, its accounts and what monies you are making, if indeed any. There will remain many thousands of people that will not register as a business but continue to buy and sell just like a business. They will always remain a target of the HMR&C and could be committing an offence if they fail to declare their business interest.

Answer 3

I started an ebay business 7 months ago. I have been a power seller on ebay for the last 2 months. I have not even thought about Tax impications as of yet. However I know that ebay have an obligation to inform HMRC, and I am expecting to be contacted at some point regarding taxes. Until then I'll just go with the flow.

Have a look at this link which gives further details on tax and VAT for UK business sellers:

http://pages.ebay.co.uk/businesscentre/l...

Good Luck.

Answer 4

I don't think there are any - I don't know about sellers who are VAT registered though (not relevant unless you take £67000 a year).  

Obviously you need to register with the inland revenue and keep records of sales and fees. which can easily be found out in Sales Reports (I wasted ages printing out individual item records).

Make sure you use Selling Manager too.

There may be reductions in some fees as a business seller too - though I can't remember.

Edit - You are also obliged to accept returns.