Anyone here working in bank or know anything tax related etc

[sith-smith]

Ok, couple of financial questions

1) If you sell Star Wars stuff, are you technically supposed to pay some sort of interest on it as income/capital gains or something?

2) If you transfer money from PayPal into your bank account or deposit a chunk of cash, does that raise any questions at the bank?

 

[Richard_H]

If you regularly sell and make a profit if more than £8500 in a tax year then it needs declared. However many items are exempt, like antiques up to the value of 6k each item so I don't think you've got anything to worry about.
If there's an issue HMRC will contact you asking for more info.

 

[edd_jedi]

Yeah, I don't see how the government could get away with taxing appreciation of things you have collected over time. Imagine if they tried to take 50% off everyone that sold a house they bought a decade ago! I imagine it is such a grey area that there's nothing to worry about. I have certainly gone through periods of serious selling, sold about 5k worth of my console collection last year in a space of 3 months and never heard anything about it.

Are you selling up Gary?

 

[sith-smith]

Cheers guys

Not selling but have built up some cash and paypal balance and need to put the lot in my account.

I was told that if you put a certain amount of cash into your account at any one time it's gets flagged up. Anyone else heard this? Or something similar?

 

[ODB]

As a general rule of thumb and slightly simplified:

Gains made on assets as such for individuals fall under Capital Gains Tax. You get a £6000 a year allowance, thats on gains, so if you buy something for £10,000 and sell it for £12,000 you have a gain of £2,000 so no tax is payable.

Most items brought are known as chattels, these have a life of less than 50 years are known as wasting chattels, there is o tax to be paid on these. Items that are seen as investments (eg jewelry) and seen as having a life greater than 50 years are known as non-wasting chattels. These are taxable but there are exceptions such as classic cars.

The rate to pay is a little bi weird too but as a rough rule its 5/3s the gain.

Star Wars collectables are likely to be tax free and unlikely to have tax payable on them unless you are selling for over £15k with a huge gain.

For moving money from paypal to a bank account, depending on the amount the bank may have to report it under money laundering rules. The end result is that HMRC might show an interest so its best to have a paper trail to show where the money has come from.

Guess what I do.

 

[sith-smith]

cheers

Is there like a specific safe amount, above which the bank starts to take an interest?

 

[Mr-shifter]

Guess what I do.

Her Majestys revenue and customs?

 

[ODB]

cheers

Is there like a specific safe amount, above which the bank starts to take an interest?

I think its £5k off hand but its also suspicious activity that they report as well.

Guess what I do.

Her Majestys revenue and customs?

I'll take most insults

 

[sith-smith]

£5k? Had no idea it might be as much as that. I was thinking it more like £500!!

what's regarded as suspicious activity?

Thanks again for the info

 

[PGowdy]

£5k? Had no idea it might be as much as that. I was thinking it more like £500!!

what's regarded as suspicious activity?

Thanks again for the info

Well, i don't know the whys and wherefores of it but i have transferred over a grand at least 3 times in the last 12 months (once to buy a mac so 1,200 went from paypal into my bank account and then was spent within 24hrs). I heard nothing.
About 2 months after that i transferred a thousand or so to pay for a trip to Barcelona (i was fronting for flights and accommodation then being paid back, as you do). Again, nothing.
However, about 6 months ago i bought something from overseas, it was quite a large payout in 2 goes. About 1000 and then a smaller about of about 300. The next day my bank card was blocked/frozen. I called them up to be told that there was suspicious activity on my account. I had to show that it was me spending the money and there was no issue. Just a security precaution and it was caused by money going out not coming in.
So all in all there seems to be no big issue with suddenly transferring that kind of money into your account (which clearly isn't a wage or whatever).
I've never transferred and amount ass large as 3, 4, 5k etc.

 

[Mr-shifter]

I think that freezing your bank card stuff is down to the bank rather than anyone else. A few years ago I had an early mid life crisis and brought myself a BMW M3. I had just sold some shares so I had the money in my bank account. I paid for the thing on my debit card. 12.5K put through the little machine. The card machine referred it and I had to speak to a woman on the phone to verify it was me etc. All went through ok.

I took the car for a bit of a drive and it quickly drank what was in the tank so I stopped for some petrol (something I had to do frequently with that car). Tried to pay with my debit card and it got refused. I was embarrassed so I paid on another card and left. Got home and rang the bank and they said they had put the card on hold due to suspicious activity. I got so angry as I pointed out to them that a) I had verified it was me on the phone with them, and b) If it was someone being dodgy they should have done something about it before they spent 12 odd grand out of my account!!

Banks generally annoy me.

 

[ODB]

£5k? Had no idea it might be as much as that. I was thinking it more like £500!!

what's regarded as suspicious activity?

Thanks again for the info

They have to report all large amounts to FCA who might then tell the bank to take action or not. Suspicious activity might be anything from the amounts that stand out, sending money overseas, large cash transactions, payments or receipts from known trouble areas or just strange behaivour. The banks are duty bound to report and even take action if they believe there is laundering going on.

 

[jedisearcher]

The CGT limit is actually £10.6k pa, and that's profit, not proceeds, so it would take some serious doing with Star Wars stuff, and antiques up to £6k each are exempt anyway so no worries on either side.

I also got a card declined after buying a car and trying buy petrol and had a foreign payment pulled by the bank, the payment was to AFA :lol:

As to money laundering unless the values were ridiculous I can't see the bank even bring bothered. I mean, if your Walter White it's cash that's the issue, not traceable PayPal currency which they can take a peak at anytime through any number of methods.