Ebay Stealth account and VAT

[Kiroshi]

Well, I cant fight the VAT thing anymore. After reviewing a few things and the speed in which one of my businesses is going I will need to register for VAT soon.

My question is, does anyone here have experience of being VAT registered and running a stealth account that they can share? Does having the account or accounts in other names cause issues? Has anyone ever dared actually give ebay their VAT number for their business? Would I get to claim vat back on account fees? Its only 1 account which would hit threshold, but would ebay link me with that one number?

Finally, does anyone use quickbooks and link ebay to it, or is there linking dangers?

Thanks in advance

[chimera]

You say one of your businesses is going to go over the VAT threshold.

Just to check is each of your businesses (i assume this refers to different Ebay accounts) registered as a separate LTD company for tax purposes? Or do you report all tax on a single return as a sole trader?

This is important as if you complete self assessment as a sole trader and register for VAT this would create a VAT liability for all your business transactions.

[Kiroshi]

Thanks for the reply. To clarify:

BUSINESS LTD COMPANY 1: selling a particular type of thing - Registered as a LTD company selling items across my own website, ebay, Amazon and face to face. This is the one in question which WILL go over the VAT threshold. I have one ebay account assigned to this which turnover is growing rapidly and now on about 6k turnover per month. This is the one I refer to.

Its worth noting that I am building smaller accounts to run alongside this which will eventually sell the same stuff, under the same ltd company.

BUSINESS LTD COMPANY 2: This is where 'All other items sold' go under. Any account I have selling any items that are not within company 1. This is no where near VAT threashold due to most items here being low value high margin and volume.


Additional info - I do have an accountant and this is based and laid out as per advice etc

[chimera]

Thanks for the info.

In that case, personally never had an issue re VAT and multiple stealth, but i did not register my VAT number with eBay or Amazon because of the potential linking.

I negate the issue of not claiming back VAT on fees by being on a flat rate scheme. Obviously this benefits my particular setup as a whole and wont necessarily apply to everyone.

One warning, deliberately using separate LTD companies to evade VAT can get sticky. Having an accountant offers you zero protection, all comes back to you. Now please know i am not saying this is what you are doing, just something i have come across. Unless those companies are substantially different i would be a tad worried.

[Kiroshi]

Cheers.

Yeah im having an aneurysm over flat rate vs traditional scheme, trying to work out which will be best.

Appreciate the warning over the LTD thing but dont worry, the companies couldnt be any more different. The only link is that they are both retail.