In a recent financial year, Ebay was asked to reveal the identities of about 15,000 sellers that sold more than $20,000 worth of goods online. The ATO has now reduced the threshold to $10,000.

Each year the government’s revenue collection arm extends further and further into the databases of financial institutions, employers and other sources of relevent recordss, and with millions of dollars in play, the taxman’s ability to pre-fill and use tools such as data-matching and performance benchmarks looks likely to increase.

With the amount of data kept online about taxpayers, it pays to be ever vigilant about meeting tax obligations and therefore avoiding otherwise unnecessary audits and fines.

This is especially so given the Tax Offices’s recent update of the protocols governing its Online Selling Data Matching Program. Now in its fourth year, the program was developed to assess the overall level of tax compliance for anyone involved in selling goods or services via online sites, such as ebay.

Both the ATO and Centrelink have in the past asked for data from ebay, whcih is legally required to comply with a formal request for information. For a recent financial year for example eBay was asked to reveal the identities for about 15,000 people sell over $20,000 worth on goods online.

We have included two important checklists to help determine –

1. Are your selling activities a business or a hobby?

• The answer may have major Tax & GST implications
• Also have Centrelink implications for sellers receiving any payments from Centrelink.