What could be done, self employed or not

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Few years ago a friend(or colleague) of my cousin asked me to buy him few things worth under 100 pounds from amazon and send it to India where he lives. I said that it's not a problem however was unemployed by the time a said that he should also pay delivery costs(something around 20 pounds) shop-my place-India and for packaging(around 10 pounds). He agreed so I bought him his stuff using my card, than packed it and sent it India. He returned me the money using paypal with the following comment: "80GBP+20delivery from Amazon+14GBP comission 10%(what was supposed to be packaging costs I believe. However for packaging I paid only 10 GBP)" I have no idea why he wrote it that way. Few years ago I haven't noticed that comment and never thought about it. Just recently when I was arranging my archive, I noticed that paypal transaction with the comment.

What should I do? Could this be considered as a trade, do I need to pay something from it(by the time I was unemployed and had no income so even if to treat these transaction as income, it's well below the threshold), it was a one off trasaction actually. Maybe few month later I bought a laptop case worth 10-20 pounds maximum for my brother and send it to him and he returned me the money using paypal. Neither before nor after I ever used paypal or any other online services. I didn't send anything to anybody since that time or received any credits/debits to/from my paypal account. 

Did I need to register as self employed or what should I do now? 

Replies (4)

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Lanop Accountants
By Lanop
25th Apr 2017 19:18

You do not need to register as self employed person or for personal tax return as this was not your normal trade or income.
You can check out further details on the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/self-assessment-tax-returns/who-must-send-a-tax-return

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By Weq1
25th Apr 2017 19:34

Thanks Lanop. Actually it wasn't supposed to be an income. Just wanted him to reimburse my costs and nothing more. However he payed me approximately 5 pounds more than I spent and wrote that stupid comment about commission. Maybe that was his way to thank me or the opposite- he didn't like that I asked him to return me the money I spent on packaging or something in-between.

Just to make it clear. One or two small transactions can't be considered as trade and unless they exceed personal threshold there's nothing to pay/register/fill forms?

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By SpreadsheetUser
26th Apr 2017 10:03

Time to stop allowing anonymous posts, it's getting tiresome

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By AlgernonB
26th Apr 2017 10:47

I take this query to be genuine, and an indication of the state HMRC have put people in, worrying about whether simple, everyday transactions could be construed as trading. Friends have asked me similar things, worried to death about whether they can claim certain expenses against their self employed income, when they were clearly incurred in the pursuit of their trade.

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