Starting January 2025, Ebay Canada to require SIN number for all sellers with more than 30 sales?

[joycroe_0]

I was reading this article on Ebay and it states that as of January 2025, anyone with over 30 sales will have to provide a SIN number. 
https://www.ebay.ca/help/account/regulatory/sales-reporting/canada-digital-sales-reporting?id=5476#s...

It seems like quite a drastic update and I'm surprised more people haven't been talking about it.

[mrdutch1001]

"but you were only 12 transactions away from the threshold " >>I don't consider that even close to a threshold and since for the past several years, the average of my transactions has been under 20 transactions, I feel safe,secure and have no cause for concern...As each year passes, I donate more & more to local thrift outlets, so my transactions are not about to increase! On the contrary, they are decreasing...My online selling days on eBay are nearing the closure point....

[teenytrinkets]

@mrdutch1001 I'm right there with you with the preference of donating these days. Mostly because it's easy, but also because no one wants to pay for anything anymore! FREE FREE FREE lol

[mrdutch1001]

I've seen the good ole days of eBay and the current eBay days are a whole lot of nothing but scammers, fraud,counterfeits,"made in C****" junk/dollar store items, a site saturated with everything ordinary; very little uniqueness here anymore.....and yes there are those buyers that want everything "Free" no matter how they do it...

[fergua3]

i didn't realize the law was passed so long ago.......strange nobody mentioned a peep about it, unless  someone did at the time but their post was largely ignored or overlooked.   

Yes this will catch a lot of people by surpise.....lol.   Hundreds of thousands of them at least.  30 transactions  in a year is only an average of 2 1/2 per month.   I can't imagine CRA will be interested in most of them.   They will have to invest a lot of resources to squeeze a few hundred dollars out of most of the people, if that much....there are much more effiicient ways to utilize those resources.

My concern is i do not want to give my SIN to ebay.   I don't trust them at all to keep it safe....they are welcome ot give my name/address etc to the CRA.  I've lived at my address over 25 years so CRA knows who i am and what my SIN is.

[joycroe_0]

It's wild, the government has no problems handing out social assistance to to basically anyone who asks but they're now forbiding someone from selling some old items from their closet online if they don't provide detailed accounting records.

I understand setting a monetary threshold but 30 transactions a year is a complete joke.  The way in which this government wields control to micro-manage the public is absurd, but I haven't heard any one else complaining about it so I guess the public is fine with it?

Next thing you know the feds are going to start swooping in during garage sales and demanding to see a record of every old catchers mitt sold. 🤣😌

[joycroe_0]

And I don't see the logic behind having 2 seperate thresholds? if 2800$ is a sensible monetary thereshold, why then do they also include some arbitary number of 30 sales?

Has the government issued an explanation for this?

[joycroe_0]

I think it's going to send a lot of people packing ofrom Ebay to be honest. 30 sales could only be about a few hundred bucks,  most people aren't going to want to bother with the hassle of filing detailed paper work or hiring an accountant for that... Let alone having to pay tax on an item that they've already purchased.

I looked at the tax return an they want exact numbers for what you paid for the "inventory"... Most people who casually sell on Ebay don't look at the platform in that kind of a way.

[joycroe_0]

And I was looking and they don't clasify things like old trading cards as a personal use good. They classify it as an "investement" that must be taxed.

So if I spend 200 dollars on a box of cards and sell a bunch for 50 dollars to recoup some cost, I still have to pay a full tax rate on the 50 dollars as they're seen as a "capital investment".

I'm just going to pivot to in real life transactions for stuff like that.

[teenytrinkets]

@joycroe_0My guess is having the 2 separate thresholds is to include regular sellers of low valued items, and casual sellers of high value items. That's their target. And it's unlikely they action everyone that gets reported. They just don't have the resources for that. I'm sure they'll have an algorithm of sorts that will compare your net sales$ to your reported net income and that will determine if they come knocking. But even that's probably too many people. They've threatened the fine for not forking over your personal info for a reason- they probably anticipate a lot of push back. And understandably... this is a big change that hasn't been communicated effectively. It'll likely be a shtshw more or less, lol. But we'll have to wait and see how it plays out! I'm also interested to see how this will evolve over time because FB Marketplace is really popular, and a lot of payments are etransfers. So, will banks and payment processing services need to start reporting next? Definitely seems that way! So garage sales with e-transfer payments would get included. Ah the joys of the cashless society! Lol

[reallynicestamps]

Oh "Investment"

That's a Good Thing.

The tax laws are written to collect from wage earners and to give "investors" lots of deductions.

DH bangs on about tax credits on "investments" that have actually lost value.

I wish @pierrelebel our once resident professional accountant was still working here.

Just as CBSA ignored packages valued under $100 when the import fees were to be collected on imports valued over $20, I suspect this will be a tempest in a teapot for most sellers.

Another analogy, Ottawa has a bylaw that says residents must get a permit to hold a garage sale. The only time it was, in my memory, enforced was on the guy on Somerset St who had a permanent garage sale, really a junk yard, going on his back garden for over a decade.

It can cost more to enforce a rule than can possibly be collected in fines.

Declare your profit (not your gross income) and relax.
https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/tax/individuals/frequently-asked-questions-individu...

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

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@joycroe_0 wrote:

I was reading this article on Ebay and it states that as of January 2025, anyone with over 30 sales will have to provide a SIN number. 
https://www.ebay.ca/help/account/regulatory/sales-reporting/canada-digital-sales-reporting?id=5476#s...

It seems like quite a drastic update and I'm surprised more people haven't been talking about it.

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@joycroe_0 

See quote from announcement attached.

Reporting to the CRA

Starting January 2025, eBay will begin annually reporting to the CRA. Each January we will report for the previous year and provide a copy of the reported data for your review. Should you meet either of the thresholds described above, the following information will be shared with the CRA:

Your total consideration for the year is calculated based on the full amount received for your sales transactions, excluding:

• Shipping amounts paid to eBay
• GST/HST/PST/QST collected and remitted by eBay
• GST/HST/PST/QST charged on fees
• Amounts deducted by eBay for fees, coupons, cancelled or deleted orders
• Returns

Included disclaimer has more details. Interesting to have this drop on sellers in 2025 when it is based on 2024 sales. Am I making an incorrect interpretation????

Token musical interlude:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTW_8SxuEws

[teenytrinkets]

@fergua3 totally agree! It seems ridiculous. Can you imagine if we had to give our sin to Facebook - you know the platform that gets hacked so easily?! The sin in Canada has been very carefully safeguarded - until now. We might be okay here, but a lot of these tiny digital platforms likely don't have secure enough sites for this information. Some people might just decide to pay the fine to keep their information safe. The fact that there's only a few of us even aware of all of this right now is just mindblowing! We need to see how the rest of the public reacts when the time comes. Should get really interesting in the days to come. 🤔

[mrdutch1001]

There are already by-laws in place in some cities that restrict any given person to 3 garage sales per year>otherwise folks are required to declare themselves a business and report those monies, so if they are having consistent garage sales they ARE a business!

[joycroe_0]

Lol it certainly illuminates what a valuable resource cash is, and it's certainly something that should be advocated for. The ruling elite would like nothing more than for every single cent to be digitized and then they could really take the screws to the general public. I've been selling on Marketplace lately and I've only accepted cash.

I really think once the government starts hammering home these policies, people are going to move back to sites like FB Marketplace and Criagslist in droves. It'll be the only option for people who want to sell some stuff without having to file the paperwork of a business operation.

[fergua3]

you've brought up some interesting points.   Between etransfers/debit payments and AI, a government body could literally come after everyone who resells an old sweater or book.   That will be interesting.

But it goes back to human resources.  Even if they come after every single one of the people who will now have to give a SIN to Ebay, it would take years to get around to everyone.........some of them will pass away before their turn comes...lol.

And the inbalance of this new law, eg your FB analogy where Facebook sellers are not held accountable yet,  could also mean this law gets challenged in court as unconstiutional

[flipistics]

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@joycroe_0 wrote:

And I was looking and they don't clasify things like old trading cards as a personal use good. They classify it as an "investement" that must be taxed.

So if I spend 200 dollars on a box of cards and sell a bunch for 50 dollars to recoup some cost, I still have to pay a full tax rate on the 50 dollars as they're seen as a "capital investment".

I'm just going to pivot to in real life transactions for stuff like that.

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I'm not a tax professional or accountant so you should consider what I say to be nonsense and go talk to one.

Let's say you spend $200 on 2000 cards and sell 1500 of them for $50. Your cost of goods for the 1500 cards (depending on how you calculate it) would be $150, meaning a net loss of $100. Whether the government would argue about that regarding value, who knows. The point is that the full $50 probably shouldn't be taxed. I would suspect as long as you don't actually MAKE money on the cards you sell off, it probably wouldn't increase your tax bill.

[joycroe_0]

How does a hobby collector of 30 years who wants to sell a few cards here and to pay for new cards go about determing a profit? It almost seems an imposibility to figure that out as so many cards in my collection were pack pulled.

[joycroe_0]

It's my undestanding that these new thresholds come into play for the callendar year of 2025. I never recieved any notifications when I blew by the 30 sale mark in 2024.

[mrdutch1001]

Because arrangements can be made to ship items sold on FB Marketplace, yes indeed that site is being utilized very well by many...and until that site gets included with the taxable selling sites, FB marketplace will become a more go-to site going forward. Personally, FB Marketplace has been a great alternative...for some items...but for some categories, there just isn't the same amount of potential buyers so those categories are best suited for eBay type sites where there is that much much larger target audience...

[joycroe_0]

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@mrdutch1001 wrote:

There are already by-laws in place in some cities that restrict any given person to 3 garage sales per year>otherwise folks are required to declare themselves a business and report those monies, so if they are having consistent garage sales they ARE a business!

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Haha. Yeah well good luck to them enforcing that. I mean good Heavens, I go downtown and there's drug dealers opperating in plain sight and the police appear to allow them to opperate with impunity. So I really don't think they're going to do anything to a person with more than 3 garage sales a year.