[maxcarpets]

Hi Guys

I have been VAT Registered for many years but I keep seeing more & more people advertising NO VAT! To me this just says that their not that busy, or am I missing something. I just wondered how many people are registered for VAT.

Cheers


Justin
P.S Its a Pain in the A#@! VAT that is.

[Deep Clean Newcastle Gateshead]

I use to be vat registerd, but not worth the paperwork, and I make more money being non vat registerd, even with offsetting every thing you can against vat

[garyj]

On commercial jobs add the VAT on price I give, on domestic I add it into the price and keep quiet, unless they want an invoice ( 99% don't). I give a price they pay, don't think it would help me if I gave a price to a domestic customer then at the end of the job added the VAT, and also don't think it would be beneficial to say that there is VAT on top as they would automatically presume I am 17.5% higher priced than someone who isn't.

[Gerry Styles]

You can only charge VAT if you are REGISTEREED. I had to register in order to tender for some of the work I do.

[Neil Williams]

I think I know Gary is saying.
It is standard practice between businesses to give a net price and then expect the vat to be added (which they claim back)
With domestics yes give a total price but it should be stated includes vat. And your vat number must appear on paperwork where money is involved. Quotes,receipts etc

[Len Gribble]

With some give you more credibility, but don’t like paying it.

gps01

Will it be worth it?

Len

[Ian Rochester]

We went VAT registered last April and now I wish that there was no threshhold, (currently £64,000) for being tax exempt as we are 17.5% more expensive than the competition and that annoys me, even though I was on the other side of the fence this time last year.

There comes a point when you cannot avoid going VAT registered if you want to grow your business and become a serious player in the market.  However, it will always be an issue with domestic customers as they hate paying VAT, commercial is fine and that is where we are targeting our growth over the next 5 years.

Several of our commercial customers would not deal with a company that was not VAT registered.  We have also went Ltd status lately and that has enhanced our standing as well.

[John Kelly]

If you aren't charging vat you aren't making "good" money.

[garyj]

If you aren't charging vat you aren't making "good" money.

I'd call 60k a year good money if  I had very little overheads and was a one man band. Many others would be very happy earning that sort of money self-employed or employed.

[Mike Halliday]

and we all know that carpet cleaners are the most honest people in the world who declare everything they earn, so when they go just 1 penny over the limit they are straight onto customs & excise to register

but I wonder how many carpet cleaners are earning £75k+ and still not vat reg'

how many carpet cleaners have business's in their wife's name and split thing up :

[psg]

Mike,
we will take the 75k as your earnings then.

Jim

[Mike Halliday]

I wish, I'm lucky to earn £60 a week   (which on my £100/hr means I work 10mins day.... but its a hard 10mins )

my mate VAT reg;ed he's filing for bankruptcy, I would guess he's not earning 'good' money

 but he's a builder which is a 'materials' based business so he brings in a lot cash, but not so much profit.

[psg]

Mike,
Ur a wild man better than a second hand car dealer never think of career change. How long u been at the carpet cleaning Mike, do u work with buddy or on ur own. Ur on early this morning.

Jim

[Mike Halliday]

12yrs, but my dad was in the game before me.

been up since 5, wife couldn't sleep so she decided to watch the TV,  I asked her why she didn't just go in the lounge and let me sleep , she said she didn't want to wake the dogs :

[Mike Halliday]

ps; work as a 2 man team

[Ian Rochester]

Looking at the poll I'm surprised how many people are vat registered (almost 50% so far)

£60K is a good level of turnover, but even with the best will in the world your running costs, maintenance costs, advertising, etc, etc will eat into that by a fair amount.

Then, if you do manage to keep your costs down you are putting yourself into the higher income tax bracket.

Then, when you do come to retire what have you got to sell? A business with a turnover of £60K?, you might get £20K for it depending upon what contracts you have.

Going VAT registered is a BIG decision, however if your business is approaching the VAT threshold and if you want to have a business that is self sustainable for the long term with nothing to restrict you from growth, then you need to go VAT registered.  We dillied and dallied around for about a year treading water to try and find ways to keep below the threshold, splitting the business in two, etc, however in the end we took the plunge and went for it.  One of the best decisions I've made.

Now with nothing to hold us back our business is now turning over more that 3 times what it did this time last year, I would expect it to double again by this time next year.  We now have 11 employees (and a wife) working for the business and I pay myself, as a director, a salary of £500/month, which keeps me on basic rate tax.  I also get dividends from the business which attract corporate rate tax (20%), so I will never hit the 40% bracket.

[mark shannon]

Great for commercial but as Ian says  makes you 17.5% more expensive than the competition.  Which i found when i first registered 2 years ago a real problem, as my prices are higher than most of my competition.  However if you want to grow you need to register.
 

[Deep Clean Newcastle Gateshead]

Ian sounds like the you have the business all sorted out.  11 staff, my god, I use to employ 18 when I had the computer business down south, and that was a nightmare, but 11 carpet cleaners, do they all work full time?
Aidan

[Ian Rochester]

Not carpet cleaners, I wish they were!!

I have one lad who helps me or works by himself on carpets, 4 on Window Cleaning and 6 on regular commercial and domestic cleaning.

Carpet cleaning is now proportionally becoming a smaller part of our business

[carpet guy]

I am very happy to say, in our £300k turnover business, we are VAT exempt, but are a limited company, which I would NOT recommend, shortly reverting to non-limited