Ebay full time traders

Posted by: garyi on 10 June 2004

I have no intention of becoming one but was reading in a rag today (the mail, sorry but it was free) that there are 100s of 1000s of ebay traders that do it full time.

Whats the shimmy on this? How do they pay tax, NI etc?

I notice one guy who sells records, he has 100% feedback on 900 auctions and the way he bigs up his ads means that the records go for silly money. I have seen a quad version of wish you were here go for £250. These are not rare.

Just seems if you have something you can sell you could dodge tax etc
Posted on: 10 June 2004 by MichaelC
The traders are doing exactly that, trading. As such they are required by law to register with the Inland Revenue and pay their taxes just like you and I. This obviously applies to the UK Ebayers. VAT regulations will also come into play.

Those who are "clearing out their attics" are not traders and therefore are not required to register with the Inland Revenue. It has to be said that if these people are seen to have carried out a large volume of trades they may attract the interest of the Inland Revenue and the burden of proof will fall upon them to demonstrate that they are not in fact trading.

If someone is not trading but nets a "windfall" ie sells something for more than originally paid for then the proceeds are caught within the Capital Gains Tax net. But that is a different story.

Regards

Mike
Posted on: 10 June 2004 by Roy T
garyi,
this topic was mentioned on PFM and covered by the world service a couple of weeks ago. You might try to find the prog in the archive and have a listen, iirc it will have answers to all of your questions.

Roy T