The Tax man and centerlink are coming

A1CardsandGaming · Jul 3, 2011

Just noticed something on the ebay account regarding bigger sellers on the bay. This is going to change things for the high end card sellers and stores. your thoughts ?

This is the exact notice

24 June 2011 | 10:38AM EST

The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) and Centrelink have each advised eBay that they will be issuing formal requests for information relating to sales by Australian eBay members who sold over $20,000 worth of goods on eBay.com.au during the tax year ending June 2011.

The ATO and CentreLink have indicated that they will request the following information in relation to affected sellers:
Contact name
Address
Telephone number
Email and IP address
User ID
Date of birth
Date of registration on eBay
Monthly and annual sales volumes and value
Power seller status
eBay store status
eBay is legally required to comply with these requests for information. In addition, such disclosure is also permitted pursuant to our Privacy Policy. We confirm that disclosure will be made to the ATO by August 1 2011 and in accordance with Centrelinkâ€™s required timeframes. eBay may also be required to provide available bank account information.

For further information regarding the ATO or Centrelink, please visit Australian Taxation Office Homepage or Centrelink - assists people to become self-sufficient and supports those in need. Those affected sellers may also wish to consult with their professional legal or tax adviser.

Regards,

The eBay team

lilreddevil · Jul 3, 2011

Oh wow, a big move here. Not sure what they can do though. This in fact would give seller's an advantage wouldn't it? Can't they just claim a massive loss on the goods they have sold on eBay now?

Ultimate TC · Jul 3, 2011

Yeah this has been in the news for months I got it to but was waiting for it so all good .

AyiosYiorgos · Jul 3, 2011

Tax man wants his cut, someone has to pay for the stoooopid Carbon Tax....

drsma1 · Jul 3, 2011

box sellers fair enough, they should have to pay tax - high end single sellers shouldnt be a concern...its a "hobby"...which im pretty sure doesnt incur taxes, not sure how easy it would be for the ATO to prove otherwise.

A1CardsandGaming · Jul 3, 2011

Not sure how it will affect shops but Its pretty clear that they are looking at overall turnover of $20k or more p.a sold ! boxes, hats, cats or cards or whatever you sell but anything over that amount !?

Wheeldude · Jul 3, 2011

This is one of those things which are good in theory but bad in practise.

Not entirely necessary in my opinion, not for the majority of sellers anyway.

AyiosYiorgos · Jul 3, 2011

At the end of the day an income is been gained which TAX must be paid on it whether you agree with it or not....

Wheeldude said:
This is one of those things which are good in theory but bad in practise.

Not entirely necessary in my opinion, not for the majority of sellers anyway.

A_Iverson_I · Jul 3, 2011

AyiosYiorgos said:
At the end of the day an income is been gained which TAX must be paid on it whether you agree with it or not....

But then if you got the singles by breaking boxes then surely you can claim them as expenses and in most cases YOU would come out ahead.

in_tha_90s · Jul 4, 2011

that sucks for high volume sellers.. they will probably have to consider frequency and volume of sales like selling a card worth 10k you shouldnt have to pay anything even capital gains tax.. tax man is really greedy and this will probably impact the equally greedy ebay profits also depending on the outcome.. you cant look at this in the traditional sense of a bisiness anyhow.. how do they know how much you paid for items? you could claim losses??

Allstar cards inc · Jul 4, 2011

In July/Aug last year the ATO requested the same info for each year back to 2006/07. Reports in the media at the time said that the ATO weren't interested in people selling "garage sale" type of stuff......
It is difficult to separate hobby from business in some cases. I remember Joe Hachem who won the Poker World championship (or something like that!!)....the tax office came after him for part of his winnings. He (or his lawyers) successfully argued that he was participating as a hobby so the winnings couldn't be considered income. After the win he became a professional player and has to declare all winnings, appearance fees etc as income.

lilreddevil · Jul 4, 2011

in_tha_90s said:
that sucks for high volume sellers.. they will probably have to consider frequency and volume of sales like selling a card worth 10k you shouldnt have to pay anything even capital gains tax.. tax man is really greedy and this will probably impact the equally greedy ebay profits also depending on the outcome.. you cant look at this in the traditional sense of a bisiness anyhow.. how do they know how much you paid for items? you could claim losses??

Exactly what I pointed out.

MasterBlaster · Jul 4, 2011

A Hobby business can withstand up to $65,000 without being taxed or having to collect GST. As long as you are seen as a hobbyist, you will not have to pay tax on anything under this amount. If your seen as a business, have an EBAY store and look to be someone who is adding to the store front appeal like in Terry's case, you will be hit with a tax or at least need to prove income in an audit.

This is what my wife knows so far, she works at the ATO. Now this is what Carolyn remembers from the last classes she took where they were talking about ebay. It's a very vague overview of how the ATO is dealing with it and would say it will change as much as you change your socks. Even the ATO is a bit confused on how they are dealing with it as they are not looking for sellers who sell 3,000 items a year but total income is 5,000 from it. They are looking for anyone trying to find a way to use a commercial business and work around the tax laws or anyone who has an at home business who now is branching out onto ebay or other sites like it to circumvent paying tax.

Make sure you keep your receipts for anything you buy, including and not limited too Postage, Mailing bags, top loaders, team bags, fuel back and forth to post office, and your cards and box breaks.

Remember, cover your butt at all times, that way if you do get pinged, you can have something to fire back at them for if you have proof. Its when you don't is when you are going to really get zapped.

I will also say this about any government service. Keep your letters and phone converstaions and names of people and blah blah blah. You need to keep them for up to 10 years, or end up like someone I know what just got a Centre Link OWE letter from 2005 for 300.00, he cant fight it as he has no records. The tax office and Centre Link know this, hence why they do this shady way of collecting from you. You might not even have to owe them, however without your facts to show them, your are 100% liable and they will get the money from you.

Hope this helps

evilhomer74 · Jul 4, 2011

Open up seperate eBay accounts?

How does one work out how much they have sold in 12 months?

Jordan_23 · Jul 4, 2011

big grey area for the tax office at the moment, if your a collector and your worried about ebay sales all you need to do is have copies of all your records, they can't tax you for the sale of personal effects, as soon as the labour government gets in audits start, they've had a pretty good strick rate so far, mainly due to sellers not being able to get copies of there sales records from ebay, ebay only keep records for the last 1-2 years I'm pretty sure, they usuallly come after you with the fact you've sold items of worth and haven't reported it on your tax return, very dodgy in my opinion, anyone though that is legitimately running a business will need to register for gst and thus pay gst if they break the $75K threshold for the year

postgsl · Jul 4, 2011

evilhomer74 said:
Open up seperate eBay accounts?

How does one work out how much they have sold in 12 months?

If you use paypal you can download that information from paypal.

Allstar cards inc · Jul 4, 2011

postgsl said:
If you use paypal you can download that information from paypal.

Of course that will give you all your sales that were paid for by Paypal.....but you've still got sales paid for by direct deposit, money order, cheque etc.

AyiosYiorgos · Jul 4, 2011

I was under the impression you have to keep records for 7 years ONLY...also eBay should be keeping records for 7 years as a minimum as well....

Richo · Jul 4, 2011

A1_Cards_and_Gaming said:
Just noticed something on the ebay account regarding bigger sellers on the bay. This is going to change things for the high end card sellers and stores. your thoughts ?

This is the exact notice

24 June 2011 | 10:38AM EST

The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) and Centrelink have each advised eBay that they will be issuing formal requests for information relating to sales by Australian eBay members who sold over $20,000 worth of goods on eBay.com.au during the tax year ending June 2011.

The ATO and CentreLink have indicated that they will request the following information in relation to affected sellers:
Contact name
Address
Telephone number
Email and IP address
User ID
Date of birth
Date of registration on eBay
Monthly and annual sales volumes and value
Power seller status
eBay store status
eBay is legally required to comply with these requests for information. In addition, such disclosure is also permitted pursuant to our Privacy Policy. We confirm that disclosure will be made to the ATO by August 1 2011 and in accordance with Centrelinkâ€™s required timeframes. eBay may also be required to provide available bank account information.

For further information regarding the ATO or Centrelink, please visit Australian Taxation Office Homepage or Centrelink - assists people to become self-sufficient and supports those in need. Those affected sellers may also wish to consult with their professional legal or tax adviser.

Regards,

The eBay team

Good to see!

Hope your saving your $$$ to pay your tax Tez

---------- Post added 04-07-2011 at 07:48 PM ----------

Wheeldude said:
This is one of those things which are good in theory but bad in practise.

Not entirely necessary in my opinion, not for the majority of sellers anyway.

Which is why they are only looking at people would have had more than $20,000 in sales (The tax threshold).

MasterBlaster · Jul 5, 2011

I save them indefently. I have come to realize that a paper trail is not a bad thing to have with governments. What I do is scan all my documents and keep the originals on hand for 10 years, however I have a gmail account connected with firefox plugin uploader and just send all my scans of stuff up to it for archiving. I also keep a copy on CD.

I would suggest you keep all your records the same way, like wills, insurance, personal stuff. This way its available to you anywhere in the world. Just keep a good password on your gmail account so its not hacked.

However, when it comes to covering your bum, make sure you do so.

AyiosYiorgos said:
I was under the impression you have to keep records for 7 years ONLY...also eBay should be keeping records for 7 years as a minimum as well....

The Tax man and centerlink are coming

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