With a VAT cut due today it seems sensible to talk about VAT when running a marquee hire business<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On a personal note I\u2019m not sure a \u20182.5% sale\u2019 on everything in the UK is going to make much difference but apparently we\u2019re not allowed by our EU friends to go lower than 15%. Thanks. For. That.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Anyway, marquees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If your turnover is under a set figure (I don\u2019t know the exact figure but it\u2019s around 67k at the moment though there\u2019s also a quarterly limit that affects hire companies more) then you don\u2019t have to register for VAT, if you don\u2019t have to register then don\u2019t. I\u2019ve heard some people think it makes their company appear bigger than it is, and it does mean you can claim the VAT back from any purchases. However, if you\u2019re not registered then you don\u2019t have to charge VAT on your hire prices so you\u2019ve automatically got a sizeable and vital discount on your competitors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For those charging VAT make sure you put in your terms and conditions \u2018VAT charged at current rate\u2019. This covers you if the VAT goes up between taking the booking and your customer paying the balance. Generally we\u2019d have advance notice of any increase (this 2.5% cut is only temporary remember) so any customer who\u2019s paid you a deposit can opt to pay in full in advance and take the lower rate applicable at time of payment. Does that make sense?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here\u2019s an example:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jane Jones is marrying John Smith in June 2010. They book a marquee with you that\u2019s priced at \u00a35k + VAT by paying a 20% deposit in November 2009 (\u00a31000 + VAT at 15% = \u00a31150). It\u2019s announced that VAT will go back up to 17.5% from 1st January 2010 onwards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You write to Jane & John saying they can either pay the balance before 1st January 2010 and pay VAT at 15%, or they can wait until their wedding and pay VAT at 17.5% (you see how adding that note about \u2018current rate of VAT\u2019 in your terms and conditions has covered you here?).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
either a) pay \u00a34000 + 15% VAT = \u00a34600 before 1st January 2010<\/p>\n\n\n\n
or b) pay \u00a34000 + 17.5% VAT = \u00a34700 at the time of their wedding. Writing to your customer with this gives you goodwill and might help your cashflow while also helping the customer. Win-win \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cash jobs:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n As it\u2019s the VAT man you\u2019re evading I think this is worth mentioning here. No matter who you are you\u2019ll be offered to drop the VAT for cash. We used to lose around 8% of our business by not accepting cash jobs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You save by not paying income tax & national insurance but personally I prefer to sleep at night and not worry about VAT inspections (which are unpleasant even when you\u2019ve got nothing to hide). It\u2019s up to you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lastly<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Geoff from www.roustabout.info has been in touch in case anyone wants to hire or buy big top style tents. Always worth remembering in case you have a customer who wants something different to clearspans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" With a VAT cut due today it seems sensible to talk about VAT when running a marquee hire business On a personal note I\u2019m not sure a \u20182.5% sale\u2019 on everything in the UK is going to make much difference but apparently we\u2019re not allowed by our EU friends to go lower than 15%. Thanks. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marqueesforsale.uk\/diy2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marqueesforsale.uk\/diy2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marqueesforsale.uk\/diy2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marqueesforsale.uk\/diy2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marqueesforsale.uk\/diy2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10665"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/marqueesforsale.uk\/diy2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10665\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marqueesforsale.uk\/diy2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marqueesforsale.uk\/diy2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marqueesforsale.uk\/diy2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n