Completely agree with if we make enough we should pay tax, but HMRC state themselves that if you earn less than £1,000 per year you don’t need to register as a sole trader with them?
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No, you don’t need to register if your turnover is below the threshold, I was really talking about the people who have just had to fill in this new banner and have an extra hoop to jump through, as if more were needed…
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Thanks Joy, that makes sense, been and checked and that must be what it is.
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I think it’s a good idea, there are hundreds of sellers online who should be registered (over the 1,000 threshold) and complete a tax return that don’t. I registered with HMRC the day I started selling, I am never going to earn enough to pay tax, I would need an army of helpers to even make enough items to sell but i still do a return each year. HMRC have done this to stop those sellers that should be registered from selling on a platform if they won’t or don’t comply.
I doubt it will be down to Folksy to do anything other than submit the details that we give them to HMRC, HMRC will then contact those sellers that have not completed the form. If people want to sell as a business, hobby, sole trader etc they should be registered in the same we would be if we were employees.
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It’s the same on here Folksy work to a calendar year for the accounts we have receive from them but I work using an accounting year, I always have to have 2 sets of figures to do comparisons to previous years. It would be so much easier if everything was done the same way.
Some people might be quite happy with earning below £1K and I’m sure some don’t earn that much on here if Folksy is their exclusive and one and only platform. At least judging from some of the comments over the years about poor sales. I’ve never earned more than that on here. Ever.
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I do my accounts on an Excel spreadsheet and I’m always appalled at how much my expenses are. 
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BTW…The HMRC use a piece of very sophisticated software called Connect. The range of information HMRC Connect can gather is staggering and you will not slip through the net.
- Bank records. Information from UK bank accounts and those in 60 overseas countries.
- Savings, pensions and investments records. Allowing it to check you are claiming the correct pension reliefs, whether you’ve exceeding your ISA allowance and more.
- Land Registry records. To check whether a taxpayer should be able to afford a property.
- Credit / debit card payments. From providers such as Visa and Mastercard. This can allow HMRC to compare transactions with your declared card takings.
- Activity on online platforms. These include sites such as eBay and Airbnb, to check whether you are trading or hiring out property without declaring it.
- DVLA records. To check whether you should be able to afford to buy or make payments on a car.
- Earnings and benefits. Including money you receive from casual employers, any company benefits you receive, any maintenance payments you get and more.
- Social media. The system can scrape public social media accounts to gather information about your lifestyle or any evidence of unusually high expenditure.
- All tax documents. Including your VAT, Self-assessment and council tax records, plus information on any tax investigations.
Most worrying of all, HMRC has the power (via the so-called ‘Snoopers Charter’) to use the system to analyse your web browsing history or email records.
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@JopalianStudio I am feeling the same way…made worse by the fact that google will no longer support windows 10 after October and that might cause me no end of problems…more coffin nails …
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If it helps anyone who thinks that they might not need to fill in the self assessment forms and pay tax…I phoned them and they were really helpful…so now I no longer have to fill the forms in.
However, to be sure, I asked them to put it in writing, which they did.
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Anyone with a pension, or pensions, must take that into account too in case it takes you over the personal tax allowance.
Your annual allowance (in the tax year 2024/25) is £12,570, and the maximum new state pension you can receive is around £11,502.40 (£221.20 per week)
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I wonder when the HMRC will realise they also need to go after all those artists and crafters who don’t just sell on their own websites (which are not subject to this legislation) but who sell at multiple, regular markets and fairs.
My own Sales figure for calendar 2024 from the 4 Xmas markets I did just tipped over the £1700 HMRC reporting limit.
Not a problem for me as I declare all my sales wherever I make them.
I thought about the implications of non declared market income a few years ago when i was at a really profitable Xmas market. The lady next to me was selling ‘Xmas tat’ which she had collected from the cash and carry in Wolverhampton. She was raising money for her son to go on a trip somewhere or other !
She was doing markets at the weekends as she had a normal full time job in the week.
Who thinks she had any idea at all that she needed to tell HMRC about the money she was making at those markets (and she was making Money, she was a Very pushy sales woman !).
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Me too, I’m old school still and do manual double entry bookeeping …it’s what I did in the office so my mind is trained that way lol…keep saying I am going to do a spreadsheet. I have had some years when my purchases were almost the same as my sales but I know I spend too much, the last couple of years I’ve been trying hard not to buy anything I don’t need, I’m getting better 
but it is surprising how much the expenses add up to even without spending unnecessarily.
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Does anyone know a quick way to input date of birth on the form without scrolling through tried everything but won’t let me put it in manually thanks
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I’m actually chuffed that I got over the threshold and was asked to complete it! Not that I’m a fan of filling out even more legalities, but I sold just over the figure (and with the exception of the covid year when I nudged up a bit further,) I haven’t ever got that high in the 12 years on here! 
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I’ve done badly on here. So no banner. But HMRC still get something from me 
.
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No… that was a bad design wasn’t it…tap tap tap on back key to 1964
I thought I was going to have to keep clicking back to do my DOB but I did something and a spinny selection came up to choose day, month and year! I think I just clicked into the actual box where the date had to go rather than using the calendar pop up
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OH i wonder how I missed that, I tried to type in the dates but it wouldn’t let me, perhaps I didn’t double click, glad you managed to find it.
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That’s what I did too, no idea how though 
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