The VAT Margin Scheme & Global Accounting
Posted: July 17th, 2018, 1:15 pm
Hi All
This post/question is specifically about the Global Accounting scheme (which is a simplified version of the VAT Margin Scheme). If you haven't heard of the scheme, you're unlikely to be able to help (which is a shame, because I haven't been able to find anyone who's heard of the Global Accounting scheme so far).
In order to use the Global Accounting Scheme, your VAT registered suppliers have to issue an invoice with the statement "Global Accounting Invoice". According to HMRC, this just involves phoning up (in our case) the auction houses where we buy our goods and asking them to add this statement to the bottom of their invoices.
In reality, the auction houses use the Margin Scheme and have the statement "VAT Margin Scheme" on their invoices as standard.
As they use a template and issue hundreds of invoices at a time, it isn't practical for them to issue a bespoke invoice to us. I haven't spoken to one auction house yet who has heard of the Global scheme, although they all know about the Margin Scheme.
So that means we can't use the Global Accounting Scheme, which is by far the best scheme for us to be using. Instead, we will have to use the Margin Scheme which involves keeping an individual record of every item we buy and sell, and working out an individual cost price for items that we have bought in bulk lots. Hours of work, in other words. If we went on to the Standard VAT Scheme, we wouldn't be making any profit as we work on small margins.
Has anyone come across this, and does anyone have any suggestions please on how we can get around this? AND - a more pertinent question in all probability - does anyone know somebody who has ever managed to use the Global Accounting Scheme successfully?
MTIA
Ronnie
This post/question is specifically about the Global Accounting scheme (which is a simplified version of the VAT Margin Scheme). If you haven't heard of the scheme, you're unlikely to be able to help (which is a shame, because I haven't been able to find anyone who's heard of the Global Accounting scheme so far).
In order to use the Global Accounting Scheme, your VAT registered suppliers have to issue an invoice with the statement "Global Accounting Invoice". According to HMRC, this just involves phoning up (in our case) the auction houses where we buy our goods and asking them to add this statement to the bottom of their invoices.
In reality, the auction houses use the Margin Scheme and have the statement "VAT Margin Scheme" on their invoices as standard.
As they use a template and issue hundreds of invoices at a time, it isn't practical for them to issue a bespoke invoice to us. I haven't spoken to one auction house yet who has heard of the Global scheme, although they all know about the Margin Scheme.
So that means we can't use the Global Accounting Scheme, which is by far the best scheme for us to be using. Instead, we will have to use the Margin Scheme which involves keeping an individual record of every item we buy and sell, and working out an individual cost price for items that we have bought in bulk lots. Hours of work, in other words. If we went on to the Standard VAT Scheme, we wouldn't be making any profit as we work on small margins.
Has anyone come across this, and does anyone have any suggestions please on how we can get around this? AND - a more pertinent question in all probability - does anyone know somebody who has ever managed to use the Global Accounting Scheme successfully?
MTIA
Ronnie