I know HN leans heavily US, but if anyone is in the UK, you can now earn up to £1000 in side income without having to declare it or file a self assessment tax return.
Damn, that's nice. In Germany it's enough to have the intention to make money outside of regular employment. You won't pay taxes until a certain amount is reached, but you'll have to get a business license and fill out tax forms every year. And if you don't register yourself as "Kleingewerbe" (small business below 22k €), then you'll have to do sales tax too.
There are lawyers and some very shady businesses, that sweep through the web and report anyone who doesn't comply to any kind of law. They actually make money with this. When i had a small business, i've got a cease-and-desist letter from a lawyer of a "competitor" because a single link in my imprint page wasn't clickable. I guess that's why so many people are afraid of starting a business...
But yes, I was thinking of that ('entrepreneur's relief' I believe) too - it solves this problem nicely: don't worry about it until you know you're making money.
(And also other problems like 'hang on I sold some old crap on eBay.. was that income')
Ha! I'm old enough that 2017, when the "trading allowance" was introduced, feels like a year or two ago.. :-|
(Entrepreneurs' Relief was a thing that let you get reduced capital gains of 10% on up to £10m of proceeds from selling certain types of shareholdings or assets of a personal business. It's now called Business Asset Disposal Relief and has been decimated to just £1m.)
