Online platform sales: how seller information statements can help you with your 2023/24 tax return

If you sell goods and services through an online platform, you may shortly receive a statement under the new OECD platform reporting rules. This will contain a copy of the information about your sales shared with HMRC by the online platform.

Our new guidance on seller information statements

We have developed some new guidance for sellers that can help you better understand more about what information is included in these statements, and what they mean for you and your tax. 

Our guidance covers various aspects:

• Background – including why you have received a statement and what their intended purpose is
• How to read the statements – what some of the terminology means and how to use and apply the income information provided
• How the statement affects your taxes – it may help you track your income and understand your tax position, but it may not directly correspond to your tax obligations
• What action to take – including how the statement can help you do a tax return if you need to, to report the amounts shown.

In the rest of this article, we give you a taster of the information covered in the new guidance, and show how it can help you with your 2023/24 tax return. We also give you some tips about what to do if you are worried about your tax bill.

How a seller information statement can help you prepare your 2023/24 tax return

The statement provides a clear record of the money you have made through the online platform – some or all of which could be taxable. The statement should really be supplementary to your own business records, however if - for whatever reason - you do not have adequate records, the statement can help you prepare your 2023/24 tax return. This is because the statement covers the 2024 calendar year, broken down into quarters. As the UK tax year runs from 6 April to 5 April, some of the figures will be relevant for the 2023/24 tax return. 

  To find out who will receive a statement, how and when, see our new guidance. If you have not received a statement yet but are expecting one and need it for your 2023/24 tax return, you could try asking your platform for it.

As we explain in our guidance, not everyone that gets a statement will need to do a tax return (and vice versa). But if you do need to do a tax return and do get a statement, you can identify your gross income for the Quarter 1 (January to March 2024) period from the online platform. Although you may need to gather other details to get to your total taxable income for the 2023/24 UK tax year – which may not be limited to this platform activity – this gross income figure is a good starting point.

From this, you can deduct allowable expenses. Your statement should give you a handy summary of the fees/commissions/taxes withheld, which are one type of allowable expense. You can find some specific help for gig workers with other allowable expenses including mileage allowances and mobile phones on our website. 

  If you haven’t been keeping adequate records of any other allowable expenses, or if your expenses are low, the trading allowance might be able to help you. There is more information on our trading allowance page.

You can find some other hints to help you do your tax return in our recent news article for gig workers - Help with completing your first tax return. 

  As shown in the example above, do not take all the figures from the 2024 statement and put them in your 2023/24 UK tax return as this will make your 2023/24 tax return incorrect. The Quarter 2 to 4 figures will be relevant for your 2024/25 UK tax return, so keep the statement somewhere safe for when you prepare your tax return next year. 

What to do if you can’t pay what you owe.

If you complete your tax return and it shows that you owe some tax etc., you usually need to pay this to HMRC by 31 January following the end of the tax year in question. If you can’t pay what you owe, for example, you didn’t realise that your online selling activity was taxable and/or you didn’t save up enough for your bill at the end of the year – there are steps you can take which might help:

• Double check your tax return and the entries for accuracy. Make sure you haven’t left anything out that could reduce your tax liability, for example, allowable business expenses.
• You may also get caught out by ‘payments on account’. This is when, as well paying your tax bill for the tax year just ended, you may have to pay some tax in advance for the current tax year. Some people new to self assessment tax returns, fail to factor in these ‘payments on account’ when budgeting for their first tax bill and are shocked when they owe more money than expected. However in some instances, you can reduce or remove them. Care must be taken when making changes to your payments on account so please read our guidance on this carefully.
• If you still have problems paying your tax bill, you can read about making a Time to Pay arrangement with HMRC on our website. This includes via an online service - as it is automated this means you do not have to speak to anyone from HMRC to arrange it.

  Even if you can’t pay your tax bill, make sure you file your tax return on time to avoid late filing penalties. These can build up over time and make matters worse – sometimes late filing penalties can often become larger than the tax bill itself. You also cannot arrange a payment plan with HMRC until you have filed the tax return.

Further help

We hope our new guidance on seller information statements will be useful, however if you still have questions or need help, you may need to talk to a tax adviser or HMRC. See our getting help page for more details on how to contact a tax adviser. If you are on a low income, free advice and assistance is available from organisations such as TaxAid.

HMRC have lots of help and support available for those with tax returns to complete, including videos and webinars. If you have specific questions, you can contact HMRC, including by web chat. HMRC can also provide extra support to you if you need it.