In the more severe cases, online tax evasion could result in prison – as was the case with a user in 2014 who failed to declare their eBay income. As HMRC has the authority to access PayPal information and request extensive details from online auctioning sites, it’s unlikely that such schemes will remain hidden for the foreseeable future. In 2016, approximately 870,000 people failed to submit a Self Assessment return with some cases having noticeably small amounts of income from online sales. This resulted in huge fines for the sellers, with HMRC predicting an increase for years to come.