Are resale of goods taxable by individual in germany?

Question

Suppose I buy an induction cooker from IKEA, and then later when moving away from where I live, I decide to sell it to someone moving in. When I do this, I get some money back.

Is income gained from such resellings taxable?

Thanks.

Answer 1

There are actually two types of taxes that may apply in this case:

• Umsatzsteuer (value-added tax)
• Einkommensteuer (income tax)

Umsatzsteuer

Umsatzsteuer must only be paid if you are legally considered an Unternehmer ("entrepreneur"). This would apply if you are a) selling regularly and b) with the intention to earn money. So for occasional sales, or for selling for less than you paid, it would not apply - however if you sell too much the authorities may start asking questions.

There is no definit limit in the law for how much selling counts as "regularly", but since 2023, the Plattformen-Steuertransparenzgesetz requires Internet platforms (such as eBay, Amazon etc.) to report anyone who makes more than 30 sales or more than 2,000 € of revenue per year - so that can probably be taken as a relatively safe lower bound.

In your case: No Umsatzsteuer due.

Einkommensteuer

Einkommensteuer generally applies whenever you earn money, no matter how. Unlike Umsatzsteuer, the tax is based on the profit, not the revenue. However, there are specific rules for private sales, §22 EStG and §23 EStG.

The general rules are:

• Profit from private sales is taxable (§22, 2.).
• However, sales are exempt if
  • the time between buying and (re-selling) is more than one year, or
  • if the object is a consumer article (Gegenstand des täglichen Gebrauchs, "object of common daily use")
• Additionally, the first 600€ of profit per year (not counting exempt sales) are not taxed.

In your case: Probably no Einkommensteuer due., since an induction cooker would probably count as a Gegenstand des täglichen Gebrauchs.

In addition to that, the sale would probably also be tax-exempt if you owned it for >1 year, or if you sold it at a loss, or if your total profit per year is less than 600€, all of which sounds likely.

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Finally, note that the above only applies if your are not considered to be running a business ("Gewerbe"). The rules are similar to those for Umsatzsteuer (see above) - basically you are selling regularly and for profit. In practice, as long as you only sell stuff which you previously used yourself, you are probably in the clear.

If you buy stuff in order to sell it, things are more complicated. If you are buying and selling as a business, all kinds of rules trigger - you will have to pay taxes, you may have to register a business, you may have to offer a guarantee to buyers...