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Registering as a business on eBay


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I would like to start my own business on eBay selling christmas cards and on the site it says you pay tax to the country you are resident in regardless of where you sell to. Is anyone on here resistered as a business on eBay and what fees do you pay and how much tax? Can you get a fine or prison if you sell items as a private individual rather than as a business? Also can tax paid on selling items on eBay count towards entitlement of a Carte Vitale as mine runs out soon?

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As you are presumably French resident, you should look at the autoentrepreneur regime which is intended for that sort of work. The official guide at www.lautoentrepreneur.fr explains the charges, which will be different according to whether you make the cards yourself, or if you buy them in and re-sell them. There is a possibility of penalties or even prison for working 'au noir' without being registered in some way and not paying due charges.

To qualify for affiliation to the French health system you must pay cotisations (social security charges on your income or turnover) rather than income tax or the so-called 'social contribution'. For those in other self-employed regimes than autoentrepreneur there is a minimum level you have to pay, I think, from memory, it works out about 3000€ per annum, but that may be completely wrong. For those in salaried employment you have to be earning the equivalent of about 60 hours per month at the SMIC (minimum wage) on which you, as employee, pay about 20% in cotisations and your employer pays about 40%.

For autoentrepreneur the minimum level of cotisations for those not otherwise affiliated to the system has still not been announced. There will obviously have to be one, otherwise everybody would start a sham AE business and declare a minimal amount once a year in order to avoid having to take out costly full private health cover. It would make sense if the minimum level of cotisations for AE was the same as for other self-employment regimes for those relying on an AE business for health affiliation.

There is an excellent English translation of the AE guide around somewhere on the internet, but it is an earlier version unless it has been revised very recently.

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  • 1 month later...
Hi,

I am a registered business seller on Ebay.fr

To be able to do this you need to have your business registered in France as already explained. You then apply to be a business seller on Ebay.fr which invloves sending off all your ID and business registration papers etc to Germany. They then take a look at it all to check you are legitimate ie registered to pay your social contributions/taxes etc in France and off you go selling! It is fairly straight forward. Selling on Ebay incurs the Ebay listing fee, commission etc and any paypal fees. If you want a boutique you pay a fee each month depending on what you want etc. Maybe it would be a good idea if you haven't already to try and sell a few cards to see if there is a market out there for your product before going to the lengths of registering as business etc. Hope this helps.
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  • 1 month later...
The auto entrepreneur is a great fit for an eBay shop. It enables you to try and test your business without too much risk, as you will only pay your social charges according to what you sell (a fixed 12% of your turnover).

As a registered auto entrepreneur business you will also be issued with a SIRET number, i.e. your business ID number, which Paypal are likely to request at some point to prove that you are all legal.

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