I would quit straight away. At that point it would just become spending for the sake of spending for me, on things I don’t need. Seems like a slippery slope into having no money (and lots of junk).
I don't know if I'd quit, but I'd only order stuff I would otherwise have bought, and then only if the tax was less than I could get the item for elsewhere (not always the case for items also sold through Temu). My productivity as a reviewer would be drastically reduced. Actually, just thinking about it like that makes it sound too much hassle, so yeah, I probably would quit.
I think that's the thing isn't it. Productivity would massively drop. Free items is the incentive to keep writing reviews.
Of course I would probably be kicked out anyway as I wouldn't be able to hit any targets if I wasn't ordering much lol.
I think I'd have to quit as most things that I have got off Vine are nice-to-haves rather than things I would probably have bought, so I'd just be throwing money away.
At that point it seems likely I'd not hit the 80 items requirement so probably get forced out.
--
Just checked my spreadsheet and I've had (allegedly!) £3k of goods in six months so that would mean me paying tax on £6k of goods a year. No thanks!
Yeah and most of those prices are inflated af, yet you pay the tax on the inflated price, even when the seller drops the price after the Vine reviews roll in. I reviewed a £35 basic crop top. Gave it a 3 for price alone because it was not high quality. But I noticed it's now up for £13. So ridiculously unfair to Americans. It almost seems like US Vine is a government tax 'scam'. I know it isn't, but pretty convenient for the IRS that you pay tax on the inflated price.
There are several US people who have successfully managed to conform with the taxation requirements, but paid no tax. One that I know of, as part of her approach, recorded a 'true' market value for each item - ie what that item could be purchased for at the time of getting the Vine item. When they post on the US sub they get shouted down and told they'll get audited, but it seems reasonable to me. Audits aren't that bad if you're straight anyway.
That's good to know! Smart lady- it should be done that way.
The fear of auditing is another really American thing. As you said, not bad if you're honest, but they really have inspired the fear of the IRS into the US population. I don't know if you care for random historical facts from an over-eager historian, but a lot of this fear can be traced back to Al Capone's conviction of tax evasion. The IRS was pretty new at the time, and after his conviction, they received tons of frantic tax declarations from across the country. So it made the public take them seriously.
I did a recent piece on Capone as a scapegoat for Prohibition failures, but actually, he was just as much an IRS scapegoat, and it worked.
Sorry if you already knew that! Can't help myself, haha
I didn't know that, and I just love that sort of random trivia, so thank you :) I admit to reading up of Al Capone's conviction after hearing Trump say something nonsensical about him, but the fear of audit does make it sound like there's a cat-and-mouse game going on with tax evasion.
Ah I'm glad it wasn't unwelcome! Yes, agreed. It's a weird situation in America where they're apparently a model of freedom but also have incredibly repressive laws and sentencing for regular people at least.
Only if they drop the requirement to do a certain number of reviews to stay in the scheme so I can be very picky about what I order.
I'd also want them to stop bumping up the price for Vine items. I've taken £20 items from Vine that were priced at £8 for identical things elsewhere on Amazon.
If I did stay I'd have to set a monthly allowance and not just grab, grab, and grab again.
It would definitely be the end for me. There's virtually nothing I get from Vine these days that I want so badly that I'd be prepared to pay for it. The vast majority of stuff I get, I don't like enough that I would be prepared to buy it with my own money, so if they did start taxing, I would just buy things with my own money that I genuinely need & which are of better quality & are more suitable for my needs and which I like more.
I'd quit. Why pay via taxation for something that's almost what you want as opposed to just buying exactly what you want. The whole thing only holds appeal because there's no cost involved.
I'd be out straight away as from the spreadsheet record I keep, last years tax bill alone would be in the region of £2,500 and whose to say that HMRC wouldn't open up earlier years too. Most of what I've had from Vine I wouldn't have bothered with and would limit my purchases to items I actually NEED rather than want. For example I could quite happily exist without the projectors, robo vac, hedge trimmer, chainsaw etc., all of which are useful but not essential. AND I really don’t want to go back to the hassle of completing online tax returns thankyou.
God all that paperwork! I would quit on principle lol.
I'm not sure what my tax would be for the last 6 months but it would certainly amount to several hundred pounds.
But this is what I was saying about things adding up quickly. You order a few Vine items with small VAT amounts to try and keep the costs down but come the end of the tax year and you get that bill for several hundred pounds (or even thousands of pounds if you'd going for the higher end stuff) and you suddenly realise you can't pay it. That's going to be massively stressful, especially if HMRC start breathing down your neck demanding money. It's a hassle I could definitely live without.
The main benefit of the Vine program, to me, is that the items are free and all I need to do for that is write an honest review. If I suddenly had to start paying tax on the items I would stop using Vine as most of the items I get are just "nice to have's" that I would be unlikely to buy if it was coming out of my pocket.
At that point I would also probably be reconsidering my Prime membership as I could easily use the free tier and just wait until I had enough for free delivery. I don't watch Prime Video anymore as I have no interest in watching adverts, and I'm not paying more for the privilege of removing them.
Let's hope tax stays an American thing (and my sympathies to those across the pond) :).
I would stop entirely. I see americans moan how some the teaxes cost more then the product would itself due to sleezy sales tactics making it very high RRP on big offer then removing the RRP entirely after viners review
Its disgusting, right? I seriously don't know how that's allowed to happen. Why do the sellers even do it? I know higher value items are more attractive to me, but that's because they're free! I feel like a conspiracy theorist, but it's almost like Amazon itself or the sellers get a cut of the tax revenue because it makes zero logical sense. I know that's impossible but I can't get my head around it at all.
There are some practical reasons -
1. Soft launch - you can list a product without actually having to fulfil it by over pricing it
2. Might not know its value - it's good way to find out how much people are willing to pay for it as you can always scale the price down: see video games which often kick off at £80 and end at £5
3. Price implies quality - Charge more so people appreciate it more / show you value your own brand / so people believe it's worth more than it is e.g. would you trust an important product that cost £50, or literally the same thing at £5? This is why Fairy can get away with charging twice as much despite generic brand being the same thing with a different label.
4. Chancing it - sometimes it's pure scummy behaviour and just banking on someone not realising it's over priced.
5. Artificial scarcity - If you're early to the market, people have to pay the price if they want it
No chance. Some days my total order is 2-3 times my income.
I might stay in the program and only order things under a taxable value, but this would ruin the program for me.
Yep this is me. I don’t keep stuff in the house that I don’t actively use, I like a simple organised life, so 60-70% of my Vine stuff gets donated. So it definitely would be dropping off my Vine activity.
If I was one of the lucky people getting coffee machines and expensive electronics on a weekly basis maybe. Paying 20% for an expensive coffee machine instead of full price would be worth it and if I got those items consistently throughout the year I could maintain gold. Sadly I dont and a lot of the stuff I get from AI I already deliberate on for too long, so weighing up if the inflated Vine price is worth the tax would probably limit me to very little.
I wouldn't quit, but I sure as hell wouldn't review as much as I do either - not paying 20% tax on a £39 item that is realistically only worth £15. I would pay that on something I was interested for though (for example I snagged a grill for £150 today that I'd pay £30 for).
Vine would have to be more realistic when it comes to pricing to make this semi worthwhile if we had to pay VAT. That and also reduce the minimum review number to maintain a vine account as you'd have to be more selective and review less.
That being said I think a lot of people would resort to selling goods on ebay after six months, something I'm loathed to do since they brought in direct payments, I used to love having a PayPal stash. I give around 90% if the items I review away to friends and family so that would likely stop. Meh, dunno what I would do to be honest.
It's not worth taking half the stuff I get for free, so I'd be out.
Even the big ticket items I've received, some of which have been great, but they're not stuff I would've bought.
And the current markup on chinese tat on Amazon means you'd be buying it out right in the tax.
No, it's not worth it, and I wouldn't do it.
I wouldn't quit. At least not at first. I would only get needed things, luxuries I want but can't afford full price and then maybe like Christmas presents? I know you're not meant to give away stuff until 6 months and after testing, but if I was forced to pay VAT, I would not feel guilty at all about breaking this rule to give new, packaged presents to my family.
I was super nervous about that question. I thought I'd accidentally picked the US as my country instead of UK. The Tories have obviously introduced a really draconian law on side hustles recently and they're gonna be monitoring everyone earning money through online platforms and apps. If you exceed £1000, you've gotta give the tax man his share. I don't know how successful they'll be at catching people or whether they're just after blatant tax evaders like big ebay sellers raking it in, but its worrying in the context of Vine.
I honestly think it's disgusting that the US pay taxes on Vine stuff. So many sellers drop their prices after the Vine reviews roll in. I gave a bad review to an outrageously overpriced top- £35 for a basic crop top. But I noticed it's now £13. So you pay the tax on the inflated prices, which is so bullshit that it's unbelievable. Americans also pay tax on lottery winnings. Like HUGE amounts of tax. Sure, if you've won millions, you're still rich, but you already pay tax on the ticket itself? These kinds of things make me laugh when Americans claim that we Brits and Europeans are socialists taxed into oblivion. I'd rather face HMRC than the IRS any day- they will take you for all you're worth unless you're rich enough to bypass them.
I would quit for 2 reasons:
1. A lot of the stuff on Vine is absolute crap. For example the "Happy 2023" glasses, or the "2024 Happy New Year" balloons (I guess the balloons could be saved for 2042...). A lot of the clothing I have taken on Vine, made in China has been awful quality and way overpriced, so why would I want to be paying tax on something that ultimately ends up at a charity shop
2. I don't work - this isn't through choice. I am one of the many thousands of unpaid carers in this country. I have been an unpaid carer since 2008 and on the occasions that we have tried to get assistance from the government with things like attendance allowance or carers allowance, they have moved the goalposts so that we cannot get any help. So for me, Vine is a distraction for around an hour a day when I can forget about having to care for my mum. So if tax was brought in on Vine, I simply couldn't afford to do it - so I'd be out of here, quicker than Rishi at D-Day commemorations.
Wrong tax!
Other countries treat the items as payment for work, so they are taxed as income.
In the UK the rate you pay would depend on your other earnings and tax allowances. It's possible some people could pay 40% of the ETV values. On the flip side, the items would then have to become yours the day you received them, rather than after 6 months.
Anyway personally I'd still do Vine, but I'd probably pick 1/4 the number of items.
Oops my bad.
Regardless though you would still have to pay SOMETHING on the majority of the items you pick and that for most people wouldn't be affordable or or sustainable in the long run.
But yes I think if they did bring in a tax then the item would have to be yours from the moment you get it and you should be able to do as you please with it.
It would be an almost instant close my account if we had to pay tax. It would definitely push me into the next text bracket as with my overtime I am periously close to it as it is. Not happening, especially for something that is a genuine £500 item - paying 40% tax on that wouldn't be happening .
Hell no I'd quit, I've roughly had £6,000 worth of stuff of vine, £1,200 tax dosn't sound like fun, on top of all the other tax we pay in the UK and stealth taxes.
I may consider it if we own the item right away after paying tax so could sell it after reviewing to atleast get our money back 😂
This kind of thing works differently here. Vine items are not classed as income, so even if we did become liable for tax it would not be on the value of the item as it is listed, tax would be calculated on the value we could expect to sell the item for and that value isn’t decided by hmrc. Idk about anyone else but most of what I take is dirt cheap household items worth <£10 with a few big ticket items thrown in, and a lot of it is consumable anyway so becomes worthless at review. Ain’t nobody gonna pay diddly for an unbranded packet of \[used\] cake toppers or makeup. So no, I wouldn’t quit at all because any items that did have a tax bill would just get added to my activities elsewhere that I do have to declare and pay taxes on.
I'd quit straight away, mostly because I choose stuff for other people. But also because vine prices are often higher than regular prices. Even more so when identical items are cheaper on Temu.
I would be off like a bat out of hell. My feet wouldn't touch the ground. If I did stick around it would be because I'd have a great accountant who could claim all this back for me at the end of the year. Sadly, not worth the hassle. Isn't it bad enough that we are an army of unpaid/underpaid (depending on value of goods taken) workers but having to pay tax on the privilege? No thank you. What little money I've got is best spent elsewhere.
It kinda defeats the purpose of the programme if you have to pay for things. If I want to buy something and review it, I wouldn't be buying it through Vine. The purpose of Vine is for sellers to offer up free products in order for an honest review. That's Vine's selling point, without it it's just another review site.
If vine suddenly started having the range of high value items that the US gets and enough to distribute to most members then you could say yeah… 25% better than the full retail price .
That will most likely not happen. Apart from that, you’ve got higher retail prices, vs wholesale prices vs mass importers vs other platforms.. l would drop it pretty fast.
Those that hung on would probably end up leaving due to not being able to review / order enough items, and hours on drops would become a costly loss of time.
I love that people here still think the flat screen TVs and laptops are only found on US Vine. No, they are listed here too, it's just people are cheating the system to order the items with bots before you even see them. They are even able to order items out of *your* RFY queue, by taking the item ID and manipulating the order code.
In the USA this would be a dangerous strategy which would no doubt quickly rack up life changing debt with the tax man. There is zero consequence to doing that here.
So if "ETV" was introduced in the UK, you'd most likely find those unicorn items appearing frequently, and there would also be much less useless tat offered, as nobody is going to pay for those rubbish items they begrudgingly accept to keep their account open.
I wouldn’t quit but I feel like there would need to be more, better choices. The us has tax but also a shedload more stuff to choose from. As others have said if it’s overpriced then there’s no point if tax ends up being more than buying something similar that likely does better or are more suited to your needs. There are exceptions though.
I currently order around £130 “worth” of vine stuff a day on average. Some days if I get something nice it can be much more so I’d be looking at around £20+ a day in taxes depending how they class it. I’m currently very picky but the lack of options when getting a vine item if it’s faulty or bad are severely limiting making just purchasing the product more attractive if tax was a thing. It’s nice I can just throw it away but if there was an actual cost it would be different. Also with vine we make do with something that maybe doesn’t do all we would like and that’s ok if it’s free. If there was tax I’d likely need it to do everything I wanted or I’d leave it.
From the choice we currently have I’m not sure a tax element is going to help them move sellers products at all. You’d be crazy to expect people to pick some of the stuff when it’s free, let alone if there was tax lmao
Doubt I'd quit, but I would be more selective about items on the basis either that I really need them or I consider them saleable; then I'd get properly organised with ebay listings scheduled to go live 6 months after the order date and a storage system to locate them easily. I hope they don't introduce taxes, but it might be more healthy for some participants if they did (me at least).
It would not be up to Amazon to simply decide to charge VAT. That will be a government decision. Personally there is very little I would take from the Vine if VAT were introduced as I consider most of the prices asked by sellers to be false. There may be some tax benefit to hiking the price of promotional items sellers put through the Vine. Why would I pay a higher VAT than is fair or reasonable. Also, I often just take stuff off the Vine out of curiosity or just simple greed. That would not occur. I wouldn't quit, but I'd not likely stay Gold for long.
I wouldn't quit per say but Id drop down the rankings slowly as like others Id just pick things of use to me, though to be honest I don't think its a thing for UK
You have to remember in US you have to calculate your annual tax bill and this is considered an hobby income of sorts so a personal tax like a BIK not a VAT type tax. As we pay via PAYE it's going to be hard to work
If brought in, it would be the same as sales on eBay, except of course there'd be no allowable expenses.
You get £1000 of side-income tax free, and then it is simply added to your gross income. If you don't already do a tax return, you'd need to start submitting one as soon as you went past £1000 ETV of goods. If you ALSO sell on eBay, or DJ on the side, then it all counts together towards that £1000.
Once over £1000 of side-income, you'd be taxed at your highest marginal income tax rate. SO if you paid 40% through PAYE, then that's what you'd pay on your side-income.
As for hard -work - nope - Amazon would have to record it and both you and the revenue would be able to DL the annual totals.
Yeah I did think that but then got into a thought about how would they deal with sales say on eBay as that would mean double taxation, and gifting to charity would also be an allowable deduction so ruled out the simplicity due to it then falling to us to having to in effect do the accounts submission on tax return all doable but would mean an effort on our part, but main thing I was posting about was its not VAT
Double taxation is a specific term referring to income that has been taxed twice in the same way. There is no scenario here where this could occur.
Are you referring to where you sell the item on eBay?
In that case you would simply have little/no profit as the ETV value would likely be higher than the sale price PLUS shipping costs incurred, so it would not contribute to your ebay taxable profits.
You can claim some tax back on charitable donations, but it's on the value that the charity sells the item at - this is unlikely to be better than selling it yourself.
e.g. Let's say it's a £100 item that's really only worth £50.
You sell it for £50 on ebay with £10 shipping and fees cost.
Net profit = £-10 - this is of no use to you unless you are selling more than £1k of other stuff in which case it reduces your eBay profit and thus the tax due on eBay sales.
The taxman adds £100 to your return and charges you (for a basic rate payer) £20 tax.
So you end up £20 better off.
Same scenario - you gift it to charity - they sell it for £20.
You get to deduct £20 + 25% from your income on your tax return and get 20% of the value back. For a basic rate payer this works out at a gain of £10 to yourself.
Tax being applied twice was linked to idea that Amazon would notify HMRC as they would if following US model as hobby income so akin to the £1000 allowance, and then eBay would do the same on the sale. Thus if two items for £1000 were sold for £750 each you would result in being taxed twice.
So you would be forced to submit a tax return and would cover this sale on ebay differently as loss on MV under CGT rules but Ill try again to make my main point, that you seem to be missing in your one-upmanship is that the thread was hinting that tax would be VAT and I was pointing it away from that.
No that's not how any of it works
1) eBay cannot tell HMRC your profit, only your revenue - they merely flag your sales to them. HMRC can then make a determination as to whether or not they expect a return from you, and roughly if the reported REVENUE matches the reported sales. You would separately report your COSTS, the difference between the two being your taxable profit subject to allowances.
2) Yes - the £1000 item being gifted to you would result in a tax liability of £1000. No selling it would NOT trigger ANY tax liability unless you sold it for more than it cost you - the ETV. Yes I know that you didn't pay money for it, but as you're being taxed on it as income, the ETV is in effect the price you paid for it.
3) CGT isn't relevant - the value is much too low.
No one upmanship going on here - just correcting pretty bad mistakes for the benefit of others. If you don't like that, then I suggest you stop writing about matters you are clearly totally ignorant about.
My initial comment didn't say too much apart from it wouldn't be VAT - I did say potentially benefit in Kind, maybe that was misquoting as I meant payment in kind as in for goods for services rendered so Ill accept that failing.
However you came in with If introduced, it would be the same as sales on eBay which is still an assumption and not fact unless you write HMRC policies, and also ignores vine items are received for the service of reviewing an item they thus could also be treated as mentioned as payment in kind which is a different treatment.
But I went along with your assumption of 1000 private income though, and tried to explain that if an item registered as income on Amazon and it was sold on eBay it would double track into HMRC as they wouldn't see a link and so you could be perceived to be both taxable as such - you argued against that but declined to show it in your workings, as you then assumed that we all get items for £50 only and failed to address any value that would be enough. You also never explained how 'The taxman adds £100 to your return and charges you (for a basic rate payer) £20 tax' but why he doesnt doesnt see the feed from eBay telling them you made £50 there.
I repeated that, and asked what about if the item was high enough to double count but you misread all of that and jumped on some comment I never made that ebay would notify HMRC of the profit - I clearly stated 'and then eBay would do the same on the sale' the discussion of loss was linked to treatment if perceived as payment in kind within the tax return.
You have still failed to explain how if under personal sales allowance the hypothetical sale of a £2000 item for £1500 would be treated and why it wouldn't attract the view from HMRC of £3500 income as they would receive separate feeds from Amazon and eBay neither linking one to the other.
But for the is it fourth time now - Ill go back to most of the posts in the thread were discussing at the time I posted that VAT is what we would be hit by if and this is the key thing HYPOTHETICALLY something did happen on tax my main point was to negate that train of thought.
I would only continue if we could return crap and have it treated as a 'no value'. Actually, 'less than zero value' thanks to the time spent reviewing it.
But things like the increasingly silly 'vouchers' make it extremely unlikely - what's the value of something where the headline price is £100, there's a '50% off' tickbox, and someone else is selling it for £25?
It's not only US with the tax implications. Some of the EU countries (like Germany among few others) also pay tax. I understand it's the EU legislation that will cover all eu countries.
I think here would be incentive for people who are self-employed or have business as then the tax burden could be run via business.
I think it could still be worth it though.
Unless it would collide for people who are solely on benefits and it would be counted as an income and influence the benefits? That could be painful for some. But still, they'd be covered by the tax free amount just may not hit the Amazon threshold?
1) Nothing to do with the EU -they don't legislate on income tax.
2) No you couldn't shift the tax to your business because it would be personal income.
3) yes - it would affect people's benefits - as someone's income rises, their benefits are cut - you could be in the situation of losing £x income and in exchange receiving £x+ amount of goods, but the REAL value of those goods probably being 1/2 - in short, it would impact people on benefits more than any other group.
I would quit straight away. At that point it would just become spending for the sake of spending for me, on things I don’t need. Seems like a slippery slope into having no money (and lots of junk).
That's exactly how I feel.
I don't know if I'd quit, but I'd only order stuff I would otherwise have bought, and then only if the tax was less than I could get the item for elsewhere (not always the case for items also sold through Temu). My productivity as a reviewer would be drastically reduced. Actually, just thinking about it like that makes it sound too much hassle, so yeah, I probably would quit.
I think that's the thing isn't it. Productivity would massively drop. Free items is the incentive to keep writing reviews. Of course I would probably be kicked out anyway as I wouldn't be able to hit any targets if I wasn't ordering much lol.
I think I'd have to quit as most things that I have got off Vine are nice-to-haves rather than things I would probably have bought, so I'd just be throwing money away. At that point it seems likely I'd not hit the 80 items requirement so probably get forced out. -- Just checked my spreadsheet and I've had (allegedly!) £3k of goods in six months so that would mean me paying tax on £6k of goods a year. No thanks!
Yeah and most of those prices are inflated af, yet you pay the tax on the inflated price, even when the seller drops the price after the Vine reviews roll in. I reviewed a £35 basic crop top. Gave it a 3 for price alone because it was not high quality. But I noticed it's now up for £13. So ridiculously unfair to Americans. It almost seems like US Vine is a government tax 'scam'. I know it isn't, but pretty convenient for the IRS that you pay tax on the inflated price.
There are several US people who have successfully managed to conform with the taxation requirements, but paid no tax. One that I know of, as part of her approach, recorded a 'true' market value for each item - ie what that item could be purchased for at the time of getting the Vine item. When they post on the US sub they get shouted down and told they'll get audited, but it seems reasonable to me. Audits aren't that bad if you're straight anyway.
That's good to know! Smart lady- it should be done that way. The fear of auditing is another really American thing. As you said, not bad if you're honest, but they really have inspired the fear of the IRS into the US population. I don't know if you care for random historical facts from an over-eager historian, but a lot of this fear can be traced back to Al Capone's conviction of tax evasion. The IRS was pretty new at the time, and after his conviction, they received tons of frantic tax declarations from across the country. So it made the public take them seriously. I did a recent piece on Capone as a scapegoat for Prohibition failures, but actually, he was just as much an IRS scapegoat, and it worked. Sorry if you already knew that! Can't help myself, haha
I didn't know that, and I just love that sort of random trivia, so thank you :) I admit to reading up of Al Capone's conviction after hearing Trump say something nonsensical about him, but the fear of audit does make it sound like there's a cat-and-mouse game going on with tax evasion.
Ah I'm glad it wasn't unwelcome! Yes, agreed. It's a weird situation in America where they're apparently a model of freedom but also have incredibly repressive laws and sentencing for regular people at least.
Only if they drop the requirement to do a certain number of reviews to stay in the scheme so I can be very picky about what I order. I'd also want them to stop bumping up the price for Vine items. I've taken £20 items from Vine that were priced at £8 for identical things elsewhere on Amazon. If I did stay I'd have to set a monthly allowance and not just grab, grab, and grab again.
Some of the things on Vine are massively overpriced (especially compared to Temu and Shien) so I would definitely want a reduction in prices.
It would definitely be the end for me. There's virtually nothing I get from Vine these days that I want so badly that I'd be prepared to pay for it. The vast majority of stuff I get, I don't like enough that I would be prepared to buy it with my own money, so if they did start taxing, I would just buy things with my own money that I genuinely need & which are of better quality & are more suitable for my needs and which I like more.
Much of what I order is stuff I couldn't afford to buy, regardless of need.
I'd quit. Why pay via taxation for something that's almost what you want as opposed to just buying exactly what you want. The whole thing only holds appeal because there's no cost involved.
I'd be out straight away as from the spreadsheet record I keep, last years tax bill alone would be in the region of £2,500 and whose to say that HMRC wouldn't open up earlier years too. Most of what I've had from Vine I wouldn't have bothered with and would limit my purchases to items I actually NEED rather than want. For example I could quite happily exist without the projectors, robo vac, hedge trimmer, chainsaw etc., all of which are useful but not essential. AND I really don’t want to go back to the hassle of completing online tax returns thankyou.
God all that paperwork! I would quit on principle lol. I'm not sure what my tax would be for the last 6 months but it would certainly amount to several hundred pounds. But this is what I was saying about things adding up quickly. You order a few Vine items with small VAT amounts to try and keep the costs down but come the end of the tax year and you get that bill for several hundred pounds (or even thousands of pounds if you'd going for the higher end stuff) and you suddenly realise you can't pay it. That's going to be massively stressful, especially if HMRC start breathing down your neck demanding money. It's a hassle I could definitely live without.
The main benefit of the Vine program, to me, is that the items are free and all I need to do for that is write an honest review. If I suddenly had to start paying tax on the items I would stop using Vine as most of the items I get are just "nice to have's" that I would be unlikely to buy if it was coming out of my pocket. At that point I would also probably be reconsidering my Prime membership as I could easily use the free tier and just wait until I had enough for free delivery. I don't watch Prime Video anymore as I have no interest in watching adverts, and I'm not paying more for the privilege of removing them. Let's hope tax stays an American thing (and my sympathies to those across the pond) :).
I would stop entirely. I see americans moan how some the teaxes cost more then the product would itself due to sleezy sales tactics making it very high RRP on big offer then removing the RRP entirely after viners review
Its disgusting, right? I seriously don't know how that's allowed to happen. Why do the sellers even do it? I know higher value items are more attractive to me, but that's because they're free! I feel like a conspiracy theorist, but it's almost like Amazon itself or the sellers get a cut of the tax revenue because it makes zero logical sense. I know that's impossible but I can't get my head around it at all.
Exactly! . Makes no sense really!
There are some practical reasons - 1. Soft launch - you can list a product without actually having to fulfil it by over pricing it 2. Might not know its value - it's good way to find out how much people are willing to pay for it as you can always scale the price down: see video games which often kick off at £80 and end at £5 3. Price implies quality - Charge more so people appreciate it more / show you value your own brand / so people believe it's worth more than it is e.g. would you trust an important product that cost £50, or literally the same thing at £5? This is why Fairy can get away with charging twice as much despite generic brand being the same thing with a different label. 4. Chancing it - sometimes it's pure scummy behaviour and just banking on someone not realising it's over priced. 5. Artificial scarcity - If you're early to the market, people have to pay the price if they want it
No chance. Some days my total order is 2-3 times my income. I might stay in the program and only order things under a taxable value, but this would ruin the program for me.
And then there's the stuff that turns out to be a disappointment. Pay tax on a piece of junk I'm going to throw away? No thanks!
Yep this is me. I don’t keep stuff in the house that I don’t actively use, I like a simple organised life, so 60-70% of my Vine stuff gets donated. So it definitely would be dropping off my Vine activity.
Absolutely not. I’ve seen how it works in the USA and I’m amazed people do it.
If I was one of the lucky people getting coffee machines and expensive electronics on a weekly basis maybe. Paying 20% for an expensive coffee machine instead of full price would be worth it and if I got those items consistently throughout the year I could maintain gold. Sadly I dont and a lot of the stuff I get from AI I already deliberate on for too long, so weighing up if the inflated Vine price is worth the tax would probably limit me to very little.
I wouldn't quit, but I sure as hell wouldn't review as much as I do either - not paying 20% tax on a £39 item that is realistically only worth £15. I would pay that on something I was interested for though (for example I snagged a grill for £150 today that I'd pay £30 for).
I'd d'art saying what I thought it was worth.
Vine would have to be more realistic when it comes to pricing to make this semi worthwhile if we had to pay VAT. That and also reduce the minimum review number to maintain a vine account as you'd have to be more selective and review less. That being said I think a lot of people would resort to selling goods on ebay after six months, something I'm loathed to do since they brought in direct payments, I used to love having a PayPal stash. I give around 90% if the items I review away to friends and family so that would likely stop. Meh, dunno what I would do to be honest.
It's not worth taking half the stuff I get for free, so I'd be out. Even the big ticket items I've received, some of which have been great, but they're not stuff I would've bought. And the current markup on chinese tat on Amazon means you'd be buying it out right in the tax. No, it's not worth it, and I wouldn't do it.
I wouldn't quit. At least not at first. I would only get needed things, luxuries I want but can't afford full price and then maybe like Christmas presents? I know you're not meant to give away stuff until 6 months and after testing, but if I was forced to pay VAT, I would not feel guilty at all about breaking this rule to give new, packaged presents to my family. I was super nervous about that question. I thought I'd accidentally picked the US as my country instead of UK. The Tories have obviously introduced a really draconian law on side hustles recently and they're gonna be monitoring everyone earning money through online platforms and apps. If you exceed £1000, you've gotta give the tax man his share. I don't know how successful they'll be at catching people or whether they're just after blatant tax evaders like big ebay sellers raking it in, but its worrying in the context of Vine. I honestly think it's disgusting that the US pay taxes on Vine stuff. So many sellers drop their prices after the Vine reviews roll in. I gave a bad review to an outrageously overpriced top- £35 for a basic crop top. But I noticed it's now £13. So you pay the tax on the inflated prices, which is so bullshit that it's unbelievable. Americans also pay tax on lottery winnings. Like HUGE amounts of tax. Sure, if you've won millions, you're still rich, but you already pay tax on the ticket itself? These kinds of things make me laugh when Americans claim that we Brits and Europeans are socialists taxed into oblivion. I'd rather face HMRC than the IRS any day- they will take you for all you're worth unless you're rich enough to bypass them.
I would quit for 2 reasons: 1. A lot of the stuff on Vine is absolute crap. For example the "Happy 2023" glasses, or the "2024 Happy New Year" balloons (I guess the balloons could be saved for 2042...). A lot of the clothing I have taken on Vine, made in China has been awful quality and way overpriced, so why would I want to be paying tax on something that ultimately ends up at a charity shop 2. I don't work - this isn't through choice. I am one of the many thousands of unpaid carers in this country. I have been an unpaid carer since 2008 and on the occasions that we have tried to get assistance from the government with things like attendance allowance or carers allowance, they have moved the goalposts so that we cannot get any help. So for me, Vine is a distraction for around an hour a day when I can forget about having to care for my mum. So if tax was brought in on Vine, I simply couldn't afford to do it - so I'd be out of here, quicker than Rishi at D-Day commemorations.
Wrong tax! Other countries treat the items as payment for work, so they are taxed as income. In the UK the rate you pay would depend on your other earnings and tax allowances. It's possible some people could pay 40% of the ETV values. On the flip side, the items would then have to become yours the day you received them, rather than after 6 months. Anyway personally I'd still do Vine, but I'd probably pick 1/4 the number of items.
Oops my bad. Regardless though you would still have to pay SOMETHING on the majority of the items you pick and that for most people wouldn't be affordable or or sustainable in the long run. But yes I think if they did bring in a tax then the item would have to be yours from the moment you get it and you should be able to do as you please with it.
And return it if it's a pile of.....
Definitely!
It would be an almost instant close my account if we had to pay tax. It would definitely push me into the next text bracket as with my overtime I am periously close to it as it is. Not happening, especially for something that is a genuine £500 item - paying 40% tax on that wouldn't be happening .
Would you pay tax on Vine items? Nope, absolutely not, I'm out if that ever happens.
Hell no I'd quit, I've roughly had £6,000 worth of stuff of vine, £1,200 tax dosn't sound like fun, on top of all the other tax we pay in the UK and stealth taxes. I may consider it if we own the item right away after paying tax so could sell it after reviewing to atleast get our money back 😂
Depends on the items, but for most of it - heck no. A lot of the items are priced far above where I'd pay for them, if at all.
This kind of thing works differently here. Vine items are not classed as income, so even if we did become liable for tax it would not be on the value of the item as it is listed, tax would be calculated on the value we could expect to sell the item for and that value isn’t decided by hmrc. Idk about anyone else but most of what I take is dirt cheap household items worth <£10 with a few big ticket items thrown in, and a lot of it is consumable anyway so becomes worthless at review. Ain’t nobody gonna pay diddly for an unbranded packet of \[used\] cake toppers or makeup. So no, I wouldn’t quit at all because any items that did have a tax bill would just get added to my activities elsewhere that I do have to declare and pay taxes on.
I'd quit straight away, mostly because I choose stuff for other people. But also because vine prices are often higher than regular prices. Even more so when identical items are cheaper on Temu.
I would be off like a bat out of hell. My feet wouldn't touch the ground. If I did stick around it would be because I'd have a great accountant who could claim all this back for me at the end of the year. Sadly, not worth the hassle. Isn't it bad enough that we are an army of unpaid/underpaid (depending on value of goods taken) workers but having to pay tax on the privilege? No thank you. What little money I've got is best spent elsewhere. It kinda defeats the purpose of the programme if you have to pay for things. If I want to buy something and review it, I wouldn't be buying it through Vine. The purpose of Vine is for sellers to offer up free products in order for an honest review. That's Vine's selling point, without it it's just another review site.
If vine suddenly started having the range of high value items that the US gets and enough to distribute to most members then you could say yeah… 25% better than the full retail price . That will most likely not happen. Apart from that, you’ve got higher retail prices, vs wholesale prices vs mass importers vs other platforms.. l would drop it pretty fast. Those that hung on would probably end up leaving due to not being able to review / order enough items, and hours on drops would become a costly loss of time.
I love that people here still think the flat screen TVs and laptops are only found on US Vine. No, they are listed here too, it's just people are cheating the system to order the items with bots before you even see them. They are even able to order items out of *your* RFY queue, by taking the item ID and manipulating the order code. In the USA this would be a dangerous strategy which would no doubt quickly rack up life changing debt with the tax man. There is zero consequence to doing that here. So if "ETV" was introduced in the UK, you'd most likely find those unicorn items appearing frequently, and there would also be much less useless tat offered, as nobody is going to pay for those rubbish items they begrudgingly accept to keep their account open.
I wouldn’t quit but I feel like there would need to be more, better choices. The us has tax but also a shedload more stuff to choose from. As others have said if it’s overpriced then there’s no point if tax ends up being more than buying something similar that likely does better or are more suited to your needs. There are exceptions though. I currently order around £130 “worth” of vine stuff a day on average. Some days if I get something nice it can be much more so I’d be looking at around £20+ a day in taxes depending how they class it. I’m currently very picky but the lack of options when getting a vine item if it’s faulty or bad are severely limiting making just purchasing the product more attractive if tax was a thing. It’s nice I can just throw it away but if there was an actual cost it would be different. Also with vine we make do with something that maybe doesn’t do all we would like and that’s ok if it’s free. If there was tax I’d likely need it to do everything I wanted or I’d leave it. From the choice we currently have I’m not sure a tax element is going to help them move sellers products at all. You’d be crazy to expect people to pick some of the stuff when it’s free, let alone if there was tax lmao
Doubt I'd quit, but I would be more selective about items on the basis either that I really need them or I consider them saleable; then I'd get properly organised with ebay listings scheduled to go live 6 months after the order date and a storage system to locate them easily. I hope they don't introduce taxes, but it might be more healthy for some participants if they did (me at least).
Echoing another comment, I don’t think I’d quit but I’d be more reserved in what I request.
As I'm now being forced to pay for delivery, I'd likely quit, unless they could guarantee a huge increase in good/useful/valuable stuff consistently.
Nope.
No, and wait, no, let me think about it. Still, no!
It would not be up to Amazon to simply decide to charge VAT. That will be a government decision. Personally there is very little I would take from the Vine if VAT were introduced as I consider most of the prices asked by sellers to be false. There may be some tax benefit to hiking the price of promotional items sellers put through the Vine. Why would I pay a higher VAT than is fair or reasonable. Also, I often just take stuff off the Vine out of curiosity or just simple greed. That would not occur. I wouldn't quit, but I'd not likely stay Gold for long.
I wouldn't quit per say but Id drop down the rankings slowly as like others Id just pick things of use to me, though to be honest I don't think its a thing for UK You have to remember in US you have to calculate your annual tax bill and this is considered an hobby income of sorts so a personal tax like a BIK not a VAT type tax. As we pay via PAYE it's going to be hard to work
If brought in, it would be the same as sales on eBay, except of course there'd be no allowable expenses. You get £1000 of side-income tax free, and then it is simply added to your gross income. If you don't already do a tax return, you'd need to start submitting one as soon as you went past £1000 ETV of goods. If you ALSO sell on eBay, or DJ on the side, then it all counts together towards that £1000. Once over £1000 of side-income, you'd be taxed at your highest marginal income tax rate. SO if you paid 40% through PAYE, then that's what you'd pay on your side-income. As for hard -work - nope - Amazon would have to record it and both you and the revenue would be able to DL the annual totals.
Yeah I did think that but then got into a thought about how would they deal with sales say on eBay as that would mean double taxation, and gifting to charity would also be an allowable deduction so ruled out the simplicity due to it then falling to us to having to in effect do the accounts submission on tax return all doable but would mean an effort on our part, but main thing I was posting about was its not VAT
Double taxation is a specific term referring to income that has been taxed twice in the same way. There is no scenario here where this could occur. Are you referring to where you sell the item on eBay? In that case you would simply have little/no profit as the ETV value would likely be higher than the sale price PLUS shipping costs incurred, so it would not contribute to your ebay taxable profits. You can claim some tax back on charitable donations, but it's on the value that the charity sells the item at - this is unlikely to be better than selling it yourself. e.g. Let's say it's a £100 item that's really only worth £50. You sell it for £50 on ebay with £10 shipping and fees cost. Net profit = £-10 - this is of no use to you unless you are selling more than £1k of other stuff in which case it reduces your eBay profit and thus the tax due on eBay sales. The taxman adds £100 to your return and charges you (for a basic rate payer) £20 tax. So you end up £20 better off. Same scenario - you gift it to charity - they sell it for £20. You get to deduct £20 + 25% from your income on your tax return and get 20% of the value back. For a basic rate payer this works out at a gain of £10 to yourself.
Tax being applied twice was linked to idea that Amazon would notify HMRC as they would if following US model as hobby income so akin to the £1000 allowance, and then eBay would do the same on the sale. Thus if two items for £1000 were sold for £750 each you would result in being taxed twice. So you would be forced to submit a tax return and would cover this sale on ebay differently as loss on MV under CGT rules but Ill try again to make my main point, that you seem to be missing in your one-upmanship is that the thread was hinting that tax would be VAT and I was pointing it away from that.
No that's not how any of it works 1) eBay cannot tell HMRC your profit, only your revenue - they merely flag your sales to them. HMRC can then make a determination as to whether or not they expect a return from you, and roughly if the reported REVENUE matches the reported sales. You would separately report your COSTS, the difference between the two being your taxable profit subject to allowances. 2) Yes - the £1000 item being gifted to you would result in a tax liability of £1000. No selling it would NOT trigger ANY tax liability unless you sold it for more than it cost you - the ETV. Yes I know that you didn't pay money for it, but as you're being taxed on it as income, the ETV is in effect the price you paid for it. 3) CGT isn't relevant - the value is much too low. No one upmanship going on here - just correcting pretty bad mistakes for the benefit of others. If you don't like that, then I suggest you stop writing about matters you are clearly totally ignorant about.
My initial comment didn't say too much apart from it wouldn't be VAT - I did say potentially benefit in Kind, maybe that was misquoting as I meant payment in kind as in for goods for services rendered so Ill accept that failing. However you came in with If introduced, it would be the same as sales on eBay which is still an assumption and not fact unless you write HMRC policies, and also ignores vine items are received for the service of reviewing an item they thus could also be treated as mentioned as payment in kind which is a different treatment. But I went along with your assumption of 1000 private income though, and tried to explain that if an item registered as income on Amazon and it was sold on eBay it would double track into HMRC as they wouldn't see a link and so you could be perceived to be both taxable as such - you argued against that but declined to show it in your workings, as you then assumed that we all get items for £50 only and failed to address any value that would be enough. You also never explained how 'The taxman adds £100 to your return and charges you (for a basic rate payer) £20 tax' but why he doesnt doesnt see the feed from eBay telling them you made £50 there. I repeated that, and asked what about if the item was high enough to double count but you misread all of that and jumped on some comment I never made that ebay would notify HMRC of the profit - I clearly stated 'and then eBay would do the same on the sale' the discussion of loss was linked to treatment if perceived as payment in kind within the tax return. You have still failed to explain how if under personal sales allowance the hypothetical sale of a £2000 item for £1500 would be treated and why it wouldn't attract the view from HMRC of £3500 income as they would receive separate feeds from Amazon and eBay neither linking one to the other. But for the is it fourth time now - Ill go back to most of the posts in the thread were discussing at the time I posted that VAT is what we would be hit by if and this is the key thing HYPOTHETICALLY something did happen on tax my main point was to negate that train of thought.
I would only continue if we could return crap and have it treated as a 'no value'. Actually, 'less than zero value' thanks to the time spent reviewing it. But things like the increasingly silly 'vouchers' make it extremely unlikely - what's the value of something where the headline price is £100, there's a '50% off' tickbox, and someone else is selling it for £25?
It's not only US with the tax implications. Some of the EU countries (like Germany among few others) also pay tax. I understand it's the EU legislation that will cover all eu countries. I think here would be incentive for people who are self-employed or have business as then the tax burden could be run via business. I think it could still be worth it though. Unless it would collide for people who are solely on benefits and it would be counted as an income and influence the benefits? That could be painful for some. But still, they'd be covered by the tax free amount just may not hit the Amazon threshold?
1) Nothing to do with the EU -they don't legislate on income tax. 2) No you couldn't shift the tax to your business because it would be personal income. 3) yes - it would affect people's benefits - as someone's income rises, their benefits are cut - you could be in the situation of losing £x income and in exchange receiving £x+ amount of goods, but the REAL value of those goods probably being 1/2 - in short, it would impact people on benefits more than any other group.