Australia’s Department of Human Services asked eBay to give it the names of sellers who sold more than $20,000 worth of goods on the site in one year.
According to The Australian, officials asked for this information in an effort to crack down on welfare fraud by people who regularly sell online, earn considerable incomes and don’t report these earnings. eBay is reported to have shared the information of 15,000 sellers.
The agency asked eBay for the names, user IDs, email and IP addresses of sellers who were being targeted, Sandy Culkof, an eBay spokeswoman, tells The Australian. She adds that eBay notified sellers when this information was provided.
The government notes that people who sell casually on eBay will not be among those names reported.
Depending on the results of this process, which is being called a test, officials may ask for this information from the marketplace on a regular basis, they note.
Other governments have also taken steps to encourage sellers to report incomes earned from selling online. The U.K. government recently asked online sellers to update their incomes by Thursday. By meeting that deadline, sellers would have faced lower tax penalties for any income they may have not reported in the past.
