Taxes for online sales?

**osarusan** · 04/06/2007, 8:35 AM

Does anybody know if you are obliged to pay tax on things you sell online?

For example somebody on ebay selling old books they don't need, maybe the total comes to 3/4 hundred dollars.........do they have to pay tax?

For some, ebay is a way to get rid of clutter (and it seems harsh to tax them) , but some people make a lot of money from it......(maybe not so harsh on them)

Any answers?

**onceahoop** · 04/06/2007, 8:50 AM

Rumour has it that the Revenue Commissioners are investigating sales on e bay to see if people are using it to dodge their tax obligations. If it's a source of income I suppose that you are liable to tax.

**Steve Bruce** · 04/06/2007, 8:56 AM

You wouldn't get taxed for selling the odd bit of tat.

**dahamsta** · 04/06/2007, 9:39 AM

Originally Posted by osarusan

Does anybody know if you are obliged to pay tax on things you sell online?

The short answer is yes, you are. You're obliged to report and pay tax on everything you earn revenue on if it's not exempted in some way. (I'm pretty sure you're supposed to report everything that's exempted too.) If you sell a single CD at a car boot sale it should be reported. Of course only complete anal retentives actually do this, and Revenue raids of car boot sales are probably pretty rare.

That being said, if you're earning a substantial amount of money - you'll have to define that yourself - and it's regular income, it might be in your best interest to report it and pay tax on it. If you don't, and the Revenue come looking later, it could break you.

adam

**paul_oshea** · 04/06/2007, 10:11 AM

i dont understand fully though, how if you buy something ( which you have paid tax on and paid x amount of money for ) and you sell it on at a cheaper cost, which usually happens, that you should be viable for tax. I mean you are selling it at a loss ( obviously including depreciation and "deflation" or inflation relative to depreciation ). Say something like a CD for example, you listen to it, but when you sell it its gone, it has no use or value to you then, so why pay tax on the money you have made, considering it is going to be less than what you paid for.