Many people dabble in a bit of online buying and selling, and don’t consider it to be any of the ATO’s business. Some people’s dabbling grows and grows until it’s quite substantial. And some businesses are very serious about using online auction and trading sites as a substantial sales channel to generate serious profits.
If you’ve sold more than $20,000 of goods at eBay or the Trading Post in any of the past three financial years, the ATO is making a special effort to scrutinise what you’re doing. They’ve obtained records from eBay and The Trading Post that allows them to crossmatch against their own records and identify any organisations that have sold a significant volume of products online and not declared it amongst their revenue. In the same way that products sold anywhere else must be declared (and, of course, expenses incurred in earning that income can also be claimed), products sold online won’t just slip underneath the radar of the ATO and escape detection.
In the event that the ATO feels you have not made a full disclosure of your online earnings, they may use the data from eBay and Trading Post to ‘support default assessments’ – i.e. make their own assessment of how much tax they believe you owe.
If you need further assistance in managing your paper trail and accounting for all your transactions, don’t hesitate to contact us here at Top Class Accounts on 1300 85 70 75 or email us using the contact form.
