Selling off railway system - tax question?

Started by Mistry, May 16, 2018, 01:49:53 PM

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Mistry

Hello all. I've recently had a bit of a career change, and because of this I'm going to be moving nearer to Oxford for work purposes (don't want to commute particularly far) and I want to downsize my property to make it a bit cheaper. And so I will be selling the beloved track. I've been hearing recently HMRC going after ebay sellers for tax, and wasn't able to find much about the rules of selling stuff online and whether it is taxable income, so I was hoping someone could help me out - I'm a relatively active buyer & seller on eBay but selling this would be a fairly significant sell, so what are the laws on income and sold property? I've looked at sites like this income calculator (https://www.income-tax.co.uk/)but there isn't an option for selling things - however adding up what I've sold it will put my income into the higher tax bracket which I don't particularly want to do. Is anyone here active on ebay and knows a little more about this? It would be much appreciated :)

cutting42

It's only income if you are making a profit on it. If you purchased it from your (taxed) income over the years and are selling for the same or less than you paid then you are not liable. You would only count it as income if you sold it for more than you paid and then only the difference would count towards your taxable income.

This is all independent of eBay. eBay is just a selling route all be it a public one.

njee20

As Cutting42 says if you're just selling your stuff on an occasional basis then no need to declare it for tax reasons. You'd need to declare and pay if you were trading - this is buying purely to sell on (and making a profit), but I'd suggest even that's quite a grey area, as you could argue that you purchased something for enjoyment and sold it on subsequently and happened to make a profit. Unless you're selling very regularly I think that would be tough to argue.

You are also now allowed a "trading income" (and a property income) of £1000 each per tax year which was brought in for things like this and for AirB&B, below which you don't need to declare it - that's profit not revenue too, so a reasonable amount of stuff.

I would suggest you would have an extremely strong case even if HMRC asked the question in this instance that you were making a one off sale, and as such it's not taxable income. Indeed CGT would probably be more appropriate than income tax anyway.

GWR-Kris

My understanding of it if its 2nd hand the tax has already been paid on the goods when you bought the items new. You should not have any issues selling this. I think the tax concerns are if you are operating as a business regularly buying and selling of even manufacturing small time your own goods to sell.

RailGooner

Welcome aboard the forum Mistry. :wave: And welcome to Oxford - looking forward to reading more about your pending move to the City of Dreaming Spires (should you choose to share) in an introductory thread. :beers:

The only thing I know about taxes, is that they're handy for getting home after the buses stop! :D

Snowwolflair

In theory the HMRC can tax any income or gain you make subject to personal allowances.

However, these days in practical terms they are only interested in situations where the revenue gain is greater than the cost to collect, which creates a buffer amount that wont impact on any seller on eBay within reason and as long as the cycle time between owning and selling an item is long. (ie. you are not buying to sell).

What is new in the last year is that the HMRC can request the selling history of eBay members to assess if they are trading,

The advice I was given when I liquidated part of my fathers model collection was that they are looking for persistent high value sellers and where the total regularly sold would require VAT registration as well. (Double win for the HMRC).


longbow

Also new in the last year is that an individual can earn up to GBP1000 in profit from a trade before having to declare it.

monkey_brains

Quote from: Snowwolflair on May 16, 2018, 11:31:55 PM
In theory the HMRC can tax any income or gain you make subject to personal allowances.

However, these days in practical terms they are only interested in situations where the revenue gain is greater than the cost to collect, which creates a buffer amount that wont impact on any seller on eBay within reason and as long as the cycle time between owning and selling an item is long. (ie. you are not buying to sell).


Exactly this - HMRC are not interested in people selling off personal collections even if they are very large ones - if they are not careful they come up against people who when challenged say 'fine it is a trade' claim a number of legitimate trade expenses and actually end up getting a tax reduction as the expenses and original cost of purchase outweigh the revenue, being told by HMRC it is a trade opens up mileage claims for every exhibition and model shop you have ever visited and all sorts of other good deductions from income.

Tax and tax appeals (playing HMRC at their own silly game) is what I do for a living and it is fun and very varied.

TTFN

Richard
A keen modern image modeller in N Gauge, the latest creation I am working on is Cottingfield - an N Gauge Rule 1 Layout

Plotting has started on a DC controlled layout for the trains I can't easily convert to DCC North Wroxham - an N Gauge Modern Era Layout

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