Is it worth me starting a sideline selling cars from home?
Discussion
Morning all,
Currently off work and getting quite bored (see post history for gory details) so having all sorts of ideas of how to earn a bit of extra cash while doing something as a bit of a hobby when I'm back on my feet.
There are certain types of car that can be bought in Japan, in mint condition for a few hundred quid. A lot of it is non-PH stuff, but some pretty interesting turbo nutter machines are available at decent prices.
For example, I've just spotted a car for around £600 in Japan, could have it landed for around £1600 (+30% tax, taking the total to £2080). Similar condition ones sell for a minimum of £3500-4000 here. After deducting the cost of getting it home from the port, registered, MOTd etc, there's maybe a £1000-1500 profit. That's just from a quick search on one of the many Japanese sites with cars for sale so take the numbers with a pinch of salt, better deals are negotiable if buying and shipping 3 cars at a time etc.
At what point does it need to be setup as a business and done 'properly'? Can I sell X number of cars as personal sales as a hobby?
I work full-time for a large company that has decent employee benefits and pays well for the work that I do, so I'd not want to leave there and rely on this as my source of income.
If I had to do it properly and inform HMRC etc, would it even make sense to do it? Last year I just scraped by under the 40% tax threshold, is my understanding correct that if in the same situation this year and importing cars took me over this, it'd basically wipe 40% of profits straight away?
I've only ever had one employer (apprenticeship as soon as I left school) and that's been full-time so I've never had to worry about taxes etc, so I'm pretty clueless in that regard.
It'd be done as a hobby that can bring in a few extra quid when work is quiet on the overtime front.
Would like to hear some of your thoughts on the idea...
Cheers
Currently off work and getting quite bored (see post history for gory details) so having all sorts of ideas of how to earn a bit of extra cash while doing something as a bit of a hobby when I'm back on my feet.
There are certain types of car that can be bought in Japan, in mint condition for a few hundred quid. A lot of it is non-PH stuff, but some pretty interesting turbo nutter machines are available at decent prices.
For example, I've just spotted a car for around £600 in Japan, could have it landed for around £1600 (+30% tax, taking the total to £2080). Similar condition ones sell for a minimum of £3500-4000 here. After deducting the cost of getting it home from the port, registered, MOTd etc, there's maybe a £1000-1500 profit. That's just from a quick search on one of the many Japanese sites with cars for sale so take the numbers with a pinch of salt, better deals are negotiable if buying and shipping 3 cars at a time etc.
At what point does it need to be setup as a business and done 'properly'? Can I sell X number of cars as personal sales as a hobby?
I work full-time for a large company that has decent employee benefits and pays well for the work that I do, so I'd not want to leave there and rely on this as my source of income.
If I had to do it properly and inform HMRC etc, would it even make sense to do it? Last year I just scraped by under the 40% tax threshold, is my understanding correct that if in the same situation this year and importing cars took me over this, it'd basically wipe 40% of profits straight away?
I've only ever had one employer (apprenticeship as soon as I left school) and that's been full-time so I've never had to worry about taxes etc, so I'm pretty clueless in that regard.
It'd be done as a hobby that can bring in a few extra quid when work is quiet on the overtime front.
Would like to hear some of your thoughts on the idea...
Cheers
Edited by Jaaack on Friday 12th July 02:50
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