Olympic Torches, Ebay & tax

There was a recent thread that i cant actually find that mentioned about how much the olympic torches were being sold for.
Whilst looking at a article about our impoverished government attempting to tax people selling stuff on ebay there was a note in there saying that anybody selling olympic torches over £6k would be taxed.
In the first link it says that some people bought their torches for £215 whereas others were given them. However, looking at the rules in the second link the HM revenue site it seems to say that if you were given it you are not liable for tax which seems to contradict the statement about the £6k
All that aside does anyone on here sell on ebay to an extent where they have had to send in income returns. My partner sells a few things on ebay and the actual questions are a little vague such as "what is your profit?". Do we take into account time sat at the computer, travelling expenses, or does the HMR just expect profit to be the difference between what an item is bought for and then sold for?
Also we didn't even find out all this is required until today which means we've missed the date for volunteering information

http://money.aol.co.uk/2012/06/07/olympic-torch-ebay-tax-warning/
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/campaigns/introduction.htm

First, on a plus note a lad I teach in year 12 brought his olympic torch in to school today (he's a very good track cyclist- that's how he got to carry it) - it was given to him for nothing. Looked very shiney!!

As for your plight, technically any income should be declared although you are allowed to claim expenses such as postage, travel, ebay costs etc since these are offset against the gross to create the nett profit, which is all HMIRC is interested in. You can't claim for time on the internet since this is your labour, for which you are earning the profit.

In reality though, don't wouldn't worry about it if it's small fry - unless you are doing it for a living and are talking thousands, nobody is going to come knocking.

Seems some people don't know the rules looking at the starting price on this one-
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/olympic-r...=UK_Sports_Memorabilia_ET&hash=item3cc75e2549

I think there're going to be a lot of eBay hoaxer about!

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/olympics-flame-ebay-bidder-has-yet-844066

Ok, unfortuantely I have'nt watched any of the torch thing (or even the news) mostly because i'm out at 6.30 and back late.

But I really thought it was just the one torch that gets passed all around the country.

So it's like lots of them?

Yes there's lots of them. I was always under the assumption that it was just one torch passed from one hand to another but evidently there are 8000 of them
http://tamebay.com/2012/05/8000-olympic-torches-how-many-will-end-up-on-ebay.html
If you click on the link be sure to scroll down and read all the comments that have been left.

I think someone's having a....




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