Australian Tax Office requirements

[wests1952]

Some time ago Ebay informed everyone that it must advise the ATO of all sellers that had sales in excess of $20,000 pa.  Recently I heard that the ATO has asked Ebay to advise them of all sellers that have sold in excess of $10,000 pa.  Has anyone else heard of this and if so when did Ebay send out the advice.  Thanks.

[yackcollectables]

Hi Guys

               I also got that email today , twice . I contacted the ATO and as a Hobby you can still sell 20K through ebay , providing its a Hobby . I then rang ebay and they told me it is a fake email and to ignore it , they were aware of the Dud email and wanted me to send them a copy of the email so they could follow it up . I quite often get fake PayPal emails as well saying that i have made a payment to another seller which i haven't done , Beware and dont log in as this is what they want you to do to get your details...Cheers Brett

[charmony]

The email has my name in it, although not at the top (only in tiny font at the bottom), so I didn't know whether to be suspicious or not. All the links in it are to ebay.com.au and it's not asking me for info, so I would say it's genuine.

I did want to point out that Aussies with under ~$18,000 taxable income not have to file a tax return under certain conditions, so it's possible in those cases to earn $10,000 on eBay and not report it to the ATO.

[yackcollectables]

Call the ATO and you will find out that it is still 20K for a hobby , then call ebay and you will find out its a dodgie email . Ebay told me that if it was real you would have an email in your home emails and another email in your ebay message section . Cheers Brett

[pradox222]

Yes received the 10k fake email I ignored it as its incorrect. i understand it is 20k... like before be careful of these scam emails report them back to Ebay.

[pradox222]

Also it was only sent to home email. fake emails cannot be generated on Ebay, so only pay attention to emails that Ebay send which is to your User ID on Ebay and then to your home email. This 10k fake email was only sent to home emails, Yak is correct. Just send it to Ebay so they can investigate and deal with it.

[bigbrickshop]

Whether the email was sent directly from eBay or they have used a bulk email service for the mailout, the information in the email is correct.

The Tax Office has requested info from eBay for all sellers who had sales of $10,000 or more in the 2011-2012 and 2012-2013 financial years.

The government notification re eBay ATO data matching was posted on the comlaw site yesterday

http://www.comlaw.gov.au/Details/C2014G00575

[yackcollectables]

Hi there , that may be correct ? I didn't click on the link you provided as i'm not a fan of links sorry . All i know is you can sell 20 K on ebay as a hobby and thats what i'm doing , my interest is hobby related and not business . When i spoke to the guys at the Tax office they new nothing about the 10K thing so the Lady i spoke to in the small business area looked it up for me and said that providing my interest was hobby related i was ok...

[bigbrickshop]

Here's a copy of the text from the link.

http://www.comlaw.gov.au/Details/C2014G00575

Commissioner of Taxation

NOTICE OF A DATA MATCHING PROGRAM

The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) will request and collect online selling data relating to registrants that sold goods and services of a total value of $10,000 or greater in either or both of the periods from 1 July 2011 to 30 June 2012 and 1 July 2012 to 30 June 2013.

This acquired data will be electronically matched with certain sections of ATO data holdings to identify possible non-compliance with registration, reporting, lodgment and payment obligations under taxation law.

Inclusion in the program is based on the following principles:

• The data owner or its subsidiary operates a business in Australia that is governed by Australian law
• The data owner provides an online market place for businesses and individuals to buy and sell goods and services
• The data owner tracks the activity of registered sellers
• The data owner has clients whose annual trading activity amounts to $10,000 or more
• The data owner has trading activity for the year/s in focus
• Where the client base of a data owner does not present an omitted or unreported income risk, or the administrative or financial cost of collecting the data exceeds the benefit the data may provide, the data owner may be excluded from the program.

In accordance with this purpose and the principles listed above data will be sought from the following:

• eBay Australia & New Zealand Pty Ltd, a subsidiary of eBay International AG which owns and operates www.ebay.com.au.

It is expected that records relating to between 15,000 and 25,000 individuals per financial year will be matched.

This program is called the 2012 and 2013 online selling data matching program and it will enable the ATO to:

• Address the compliance behaviour of individuals and businesses selling goods and services via the online selling site who may not be correctly meeting their taxation obligations, particularly those with undeclared income and incorrect lodgment and reporting for goods and services tax, and
• Be more strategic in its approach to determine appropriate educational and compliance strategies to encourage voluntary compliance for taxpayers in the online selling market to ensure they meet their taxation obligations.

A document describing this program and how the collected data will be used by the ATO has been prepared and lodged with the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner. A copy of this document is available by emailing SpecialPurposeDataSteward@ato.gov.au with reference to the online selling data matching program.

[pradox222]

Ebay on their Facebook account state its a scam.... it may be right that the ATO have discussed this policy about, but going back 2 years..And why would Ebay continually deny information, their call centre is going crazy... i know people who have not sold anything just bought a vouple of items who go the email. i think you will find the spoof element is to stop Ebay sellers to damage Ebay.

[lyndal1838]

How is it a scam.....it does not ask for any information or ask you to click on any links?

It is purely a courtesy email to advise members what information ebay has provided to the ATO.

Even if it is a spoof email it does not warrant this amount of hysteria...no-one is being scammed and the simple fact is that ebay does send information to the ATO.