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At what level of profit on a hobby do I need to worry about my WTC/CTC?

2 replies

gillybean2 · 19/04/2011 14:47

I am thinking of selling some plants outside my house.
I'm not sure I would sell much as there is no through traffic but there are dog walkers and older people may come as they love to be nosy if they hear about it from neighbours.

I see real bargains in the plant catalogues I get but the quantities are too big for me so I end up buying smaller quantities at the garden centre for about the same money.
I sometimes order a collection of say 5 plants which may include plants/colours I don't want. Again I could sell these on to cover some of the cost of the plants I did want.

Also if it goes well I may plant up more seeds. I always end up with too many which I usually end up giving away to friends and neighbours so I was thinking I could add a few of those to the sale table.

For example I was thinking that maybe I would buy say 100 plug plants, pot them up, keep half and put the other half outside to see if any takers wanted to buy them. And I got some 'free' begonia bulbs with my last order which I don't want so could pot these up and sell them on.

I imagine any 'profit' I make would be minimal as I'd be paying out for compost and pots etc in addition to the cost of the plants and as I said there's no through traffic.

But if I did make a profit at what point would I need to inform the WTC of this? And if I decide to donate any profit to charity can I avoid worrying about the whole thing completely?

OP posts:
Chil1234 · 19/04/2011 15:20

What you're describing is somewhere between a hobby and a car boot-sale rather than a business. If you were selling 100's of plants daily and generating serious amounts of money then you'd probably think about setting yourself up as an actual nursery. As it stands, it's too small-scale to interest the taxman and you're more on a par with an E-Bayer that sells on unwanted goods. And if it doesn't count as taxable income, then WTC and CTC are unaffected. Only donate your profits to charity if you want to.

gillybean2 · 20/04/2011 01:25

Thanks for that. I will give it a go and see how it pans out I guess :)

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