[waynebarry]

Ive been adviced to go VAT registered, do you include the VAT in the price you give the customer or do you add it at the end?

[adimarsh]

What is the advantage of being VAT registered to your business? If no advantage why give yourself the headache.

[derek west]

good luck with this one wayne.

90% on here are fully booked and charge £100 an hour. lets see how many say there vat registered,

adi, its not about advantages mate, if you should be you should be, its the law.

[Joe H]

Begs the question to Wayne then........

why were you advised to get VAT registered.

if its just for being VAT registered sake, then I agree with Adi
Its been said on here in the past, if you do mostly commercial work, you business is perceived to be more successful if you are VAT registered.

If you hit the turnover threshold, then I agree with Derek

[Dave_Lee]

I had to go vat registered years ago when Insurance work took me right through the threshold. I de-registered at the earliest opportunity and have no intentions of re registering. Obviously if you turn over more than £68,000, then you have to register. I know someone who registered simply to get around £7,000 vat back that had been charged on new equipment, he too has now de-registered, after having to repay vat on the equipment at current value.
If you are after commercial work, then it is an advantage to be vat registered, as many wont consider you, unless you are. I only do commercial if it happens to come along, I don't chase it.
Dave.

[MAX Carpets]

VAT Registered, its the law! Makes know difference, and you get a bit back from the likes of YP !!

Dave,

Did you get the wand?

[Nigel_W]

Yes I am V.A.T. registered. There is only one good reason to do it and that is that your turnover is going to be some way over £68000. If I had turnover of £75000 I would work less hard and stay out of the VAT scheme.

When I verbally quote I always mention the net price first and then mention the V.A.T. It feels better to me this way because I am separating out the part of the price that I do not receive. My written quotes also break out the net,VAT and gross price.

It really irritates me that I have to charge an extra 17.5% on my prices to residential clients. The system seems grossly unfair. Surely we should all have to charge VAT regardless of turnover

If you take the scenario of  two competing owner operators.

Company A has sales of £67,000 and does not charge V.A.T.
Company B has sales of £80,000 and charges V.A.T.

On a £235 job company B has to take only £200 (after VAT deduction) or charge his client an extra £41 in VAT. Either way this does not seem fair to Company B especially when you take into account the additional administration.

I wonder if Georgie Osborne has spotted this opportunity??

Nigel

[adimarsh]

good luck with this one wayne.

90% on here are fully booked and charge £100 an hour. lets see how many say there vat registered,

adi, its not about advantages mate, if you should be you should be, its the law.

I know it's the law Derek, but there's a point at which it becomes advantages i.e. claiming it back. My point was that filling in the varius forms and making sure your VAT returns are in on time adds to the stress level. If the business does not have that high a turnover then why bother. Perhaps I'll just keep my mouth shut on this one.

[colin thomas]

wish i had never gone down the vat route,

 

[Simon Gerrard]

Wayne,

There is no 'advised' about it. If your turnover is over £70,000 then you have to register for vat. Like Nigel says, it's not worth it if you're just over threshold as the addition of vat to your prices will give you a competitive disadvantage. Plus, your books have to be immaculate, you have all the extra grief of completing a vat return every quarter and the ever present threat of a vat inspection, where, if they find you have claimed for things you are not entitled to they can back charge you add interest from the day you made the mistake. The only advantage is the ability to reclaim the vat content on your business purchases, but you will always end up paying them - guaranteed.
VAT is something to be avoided until it becomes unavoidable.

Simon

[Andrew Briscoe]

I am vat reg, and i too worried about it when i registered 5 year ago,
but to be honest, most people expect to pay it nowadays, as it is on everything.
Dont think i have lost a job because of it, ok, well maybe a few, but its usually
the custy who wants their whole house done for 80 quid, and i dont want these custies.

I have just been comparing last 1/4 to same time last year, and this 1/4 57% was
commercial. So dosnt really effect me

I quote the same as Nigel-W, i say 50+ the vat, sometimes make a joke about it,
apologise and say i am an unpaid collector of taxes, seems to work.

At end of day it works out at £280/day over 48 weeks, i only take a week off.  :
plenty on here often mention the big jobs, they must do nowt for the rest of the week 

Andrew,

ps i did a survey a while ago, on ccdo, think 2 thirds where registered.

[steve cardy]

I agree with every thing that simon says. Why be an unpaid tax collector for the govt unless you have to be. One thing to remember is that whatever the thresshold for vat is it isnt based on your financial year but works on a rolling
basis so if you have a cracking 6 months of your year at the end and a great start to your next financial year if that added togeather puts you over the limit you have to register.

[MAX Carpets]

Surely we are all aiming to T/O over more than £68K???

[Nigel_W]

I think you would be surprised Emclean. The Vat threshold of 68k seems to be a glass ceiling on the earnings of many carpet cleaners. They can't be bothered with the hassle of VAT  and if they charged 17.5% more to residential customers there business model wouldn't work as easily.

Nigel

[waynebarry]

Hi Guys thanks for your replys.
The new VAT limit is £70k and I have exceded it, Ive done 50% domestic & £50% commercial but its a mixture of Carpet cleaning, Window cleaning & gutter Cleaning.
I really want to push the carpet cleaning more this year as I enjoy it the most, I have two employees working for me so its becoming more & more difficult to stay under the bracket hence why asking the question if its affected you guys at all when you had to go registered especially where the domestic customers are concerned?
Business growing pains, its so stressfull!!

[MAX Carpets]

People accept it, as I said its the law! Plus, it takes about 10mins to fill out return. No pain, no gain!

[Adam P]

wayneberry: i heard you have to go VAT registered as soon as you think you'll hit the threshold, not after it so if you're getting close get VAT registered asap.

Nigel_W : think of it like this, you've been given 70k free of no vat so that you can compete with the competition. if everyone had to charge vat regardless of turnover, then the little guy would have very little to offer the customers, and would struggle to get any work. this would lead to just big companies running everything and it's impossible to change.

[John Kelly]

Easy way round it. Have 2 seperate companies. 1 sole trader 1 limited. Perfectly legal only problem you'll have higher accountancy fees for limited company. This way neither may reach vat threshold.

[Joe H]

Emclean
The law also says if you do not turn over more then a certain amount (£70k at the moment) then you do not need to register but can if you want.

In the past I have taken steps (steps not breaking the law) to avoid the need to register.
Why?
I am happy at the level of earnings which is below the threshold - nothing wrong with that at all.
99% of my work is domestic and I dont want to hit the client with a 17.5% tax hike.
Also, I dont want to get involved in the detail of the paperwork when you are VAT registered. I dont like being an unpaid pen pusher for any government dept (but do it when legally reqd to do so).


Cant understand why someone should say all businesses should be VAT registered. Peculiar.

[MAX Carpets]

Joe

Sorry, I meant it is law if you T/O the required amount. Paper work involved is minimal really. We try to use it to our advantage, printed on our quotes we have "As we are a bonafide, VAT registered company, all prices are subject to VAT at the current rate of 17.5%"

Justin