Digital platforms: Sales

Do you sell on digital platforms such as Wallapop, Vinted or Amazon?

Don’t forget to declare it in your income tax return!

Recently, form 238 (“Informative declaration for the communication of information by operators of digital platforms”) has been approved, which must be filed in the month of January each year by digital platforms, such as, for example, Amazon, Wallapop, Alibaba, Vinted, Airbnb, among others, that facilitate online transactions for the sale and purchase of goods, services, real estate rental or means of transport.

What operations must these digital online sales platforms declare?

Know that the platforms must inform the Tax Authorities of all sellers who during the year have sold more than 30 items, or have received more than 2,000 euros for such sales.

In case you are one of those sellers, keep in mind that the platform will contact you in order to request certain information that must be included in this form 238. The digital platforms must include the following data:

• Personal data, such as name and surname or company name, NIF, address, place and date of birth.
• Number of operations and sales volume for each quarter.
• Identification of the financial accounts used for the collection of the operations.

What does the Treasury get?

With this new informative obligation, the Treasury will be able to detect undeclared income and will be able to verify if the sellers who act through these platforms are including all their income in the IRPF, or even if they are correctly declaring the applicable VAT on these sales (when they must pay this tax).

Do I have to declare the sale in the IRPF?

The answer is yes. Depending on the periodicity with which the operation is carried out, it will be included as one type of income or another, but in any case, it must be declared.

To determine how to declare the operation we will have to analyze if we are in front of a sporadic sale or if it is a habitual sale.

• Sporadic sale:

In the case of a sporadic sale that must be declared by a platform (for example, if you sell some second-hand furniture for which you receive a total of more than 2,000 euros), you must only declare it in your IRPF if the sale price exceeds the acquisition value of the goods, i.e., provided that a profit is obtained. In this case, a capital gain must be declared for this difference (sale price minus purchase price), which will be taxed in the savings tax base. Let us remember that the savings rate is the cheapest rate of the tax whose rate ranges between 19% and 26%.

But, what if what I obtain is a loss?  In spite of the fact that it will be the most usual assumption due to the type of goods that are usually sold in this type of platforms, when we talk about punctual sales, the loss cannot be computed in the IRPF since it is derived from the “consumption” of this good.

• Habitual sale:

If you are habitually engaged in the sale of goods over the Internet (for example, you buy products from manufacturers and resell them later), it will be considered that you are performing an economic activity, so you must declare your income as income from economic activities. Therefore, the AEAT will require you to be registered in the census of entrepreneurs and to comply with the rest of the tax obligations that correspond to you as such (census obligations, tax filing, having a book of invoices issued and received, etc.).

And, what happens with the VAT?

In the event that these sales are made on a regular basis and you are acting as an entrepreneur, the AEAT will also require you to charge the corresponding VAT and then declare it periodically. And if you resell used goods (purchased without VAT from private individuals), consider using the used goods regime to charge VAT only on your profit margin (and thus not increase the selling price).

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