www.iva.co.uk

What level of detail of my income will I need to declare? In addition to my monthly wage for my day-job I also make money from buying and selling stuff on ebay and similar sites. This is not a regular amount and varies each month. Will the people I deal with if I go for an IVA need details or simply an overview of the incomings and outgoings associated with this income?

All regular income should be declared,but make it clear that your ebaying income is irregular from the start.

It depends on which IP you are dealing with. Presumably your earnings from Ebay/similar are paid into your ordinary bank account, in which case when your IP asks to see your bank statements they can simply tot up the amounts received to get an indication of what you are earning from these sources.

My position for the IVAs I run is that I am in a similar position to the taxman in that for irregular earnings the proposal imposes a duty on the client to declare these and it is taken on trust that they will do so, although I reserve the right to investigate in detail, and ultimately to fail the IVA, cases where I suspect there may have been an underdeclaration.

To go through each client's affairs in considerable detail each time would impose too much burden which as fees these days are being highly restricted cannot be justified.

Most IPs take a common sense approach to things like this - and as Philip says all unearned income does need to be disclosed to HMRC, but that is a matter for your own conscience if the amounts are relatively small.

As you appear to be buying and selling, rather than just selling old and unwanted personal items, then this would suggest that you have some form of small business going, in which case I would want to see information on that to take a view whether your payments could be increased.

If you are doing as I do with Ebay, I sell old stuff and buy stuff, but only a few times a year. What I make on this is peanuts and is paid into my Paypal account, not my bank account. It is that money that funds my spending.

I presume that money paid into Paypal doesn't show up anywhere.

Kallis

I presume from your last sentence that as you believe it doesn't show up anywhere you don't declare it to your IP ?

If you are only making "peanuts", then I think your IP probably won't be interested in it, but that's a matter for them. Certainly I would expect if any of my clients were making money on the side that they would inform me about it, if it's minimal I would then disregard it, but I would still expect to be told about it.

I think if Kallis is anything like me Philip, she just buys clothes for herself and family and then sells the old stuff. I'm sure that's acceptable isn't it?

I wasn't suggesting that at all. I was merely pointing out that it doesn't show up, and some people might not declare it.

Mine is just a few quid here and there selling my old stuff. If I make £50 a year that's as much as I make.

I was just pointing out that Ebay sales don't get paid into your bank account usually.

As Viki says, mine is just old stuff that I am selling off.

Yes, selling old personal items will not count, but buying and selling with a view to making a profit would be declarable earnings, anyway, if it's just £50 per year, no IP will take that away from you.