eBay Canada ordered to give taxman info on high volume sellers

[mandy]

Canadians who sell a lot of stuff on eBay best beware - the taxman is watching.

The Canada Revenue Agency has won a Federal Court order requiring eBay Canada Ltd. to turn over the names, addresses, phone numbers and e-mail addresses of all high-volume sellers on the popular website. The CRA wants to find out whether those individuals or companies are reporting the income they made from online sales in 2004 and 2005.

"The CRA is seeking to verify compliance with the obligations and duties under the Income Tax Act of certain Canadian taxpayers selling goods in an online marketplace," said an affidavit filed in court by Aziz Fazal, a Toronto tax officer who heads an audit group within the CRA that is leading the probe.

"In particular, the CRA seeks to verify the reporting of income by certain Canadian taxpayers selling goods via the eBay marketplace."...

full article: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/s...y/Business

[mandy]

Update:

...the Canada Revenue Agency will be checking to make sure roughly 10,000 other PowerSellers are reporting their eBay revenue as well, because of a court ruling made public yesterday.

The Federal Court of Appeal has upheld a lower court ruling and ordered eBay Canada Ltd. to comply with a request from the Canada Revenue Agency to produce the names, addresses, phone numbers, e-mail addresses as well as gross sales figures for all Canadian PowerSellers. The PowerSeller program applies to people who sell at least $1,000 (U.S.) a month through the site.

The legal struggle has been going on since 2006, when the CRA launched an investigation to determine whether these sellers reported all the revenue they earned through eBay on their 2004 and 2005 income taxes. So far, the CRA has won every court battle, but Andrew Sloss, eBay Canada's manager, said the company is prepared to fight on...

full article: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/s...y/Business