I want to start a small uk reseller business, I have setup my site and am going to use worldpay. site credit fuction works all ok, now I seem to have jumped the gun slightly. I'm not a registerd company.
questions
1)
I need to know if I have to register for vat, and ie to charge vat if not, if a company wants space off me how do i handle the vat issue?

2) Do I have to setup a company bank account or can I use my personal one until my company takes off.

3) the company obviously will start off small with the in sight to get much bigger what is the easiest way to setup my finances
thankyou

1)
I need to know if I have to register for vat, and ie to charge vat if not, if a company wants space off me how do i handle the vat issue?

You dont have to register for vat unless you make £4500 /year (as that right any accountants here?)

2) Do I have to setup a company bank account or can I use my personal one until my company takes off.

I company account is allways good.

3) the company obviously will start off small with the in sight to get much bigger what is the easiest way to setup my finances
thankyou

Get an accountant?

You dont have to charge vat until you have over £50,000 in sales. Im sure you wont need to worry about that for a long time.

The following is from this website:
http://www.hmce.gov.uk/forms/notices/misc-leaflet19.htm#What%20is%20VAT?

<quote>
Do I have to register?

If you are in business and your taxable turnover, not just profit, goes over a certain limit, known as the registration threshold, then you must register for VAT.

From 1 April 2000 the VAT registration threshold was raised to £52,000. Therefore you must register for VAT if :

at the end of any month the total value of the taxable supplies you have made in the past 12 months or less is more than £52,000; or
at any time you expect that the value of your taxable supplies will be more than £52,000 in the next 30 days alone.
To register for VAT Form VAT 1 has to be completed, which has to be sent to us within 30 days of either of the above.

If you only supply goods that are zero-rated (but exceed the registration threshold) you may not have to register for VAT. But you do have to notify us of your liability to be registered and apply to be "exempt from registration".

If you acquire goods from other EC countries you may need to be registered, your local Business Advice Centre will be able to advise you.

If you exceed this limit you should contact the Registration Unit in your local VAT Business Advice Centre who will provide you with the appropriate form and be able to help you further. The address can be found under HM Customs & Excise in your local phone book.
</quote>

I have to be honest. Being from the US I never heard of VAT before this thread. After reading that page I left more confused about what it is than before I read about it to begin with. ;)

Michael

is it worth registering as a ltd company. in the short term? and also will it be difficult getting a bank account for my company if i'm not ltd.

thanks for the replys about vat.

Its not difficult to get a bank account for your business, i managed to get a business account even though im under 18. Allthough in the end i dont use it because i had to get in my dads name for worldpay. So i just use my dads instead.

Hi,

You can set up a business account with most UK banks as a sole trader. This eliminates the need to start a Ltd. company. You do need a business account in order to use WorldPay.

I would start looking at a Ltd. co. around the same time as beign VAT registered. Then you can start getting the tax back on your bills, going out for meals on the company account......etc;)

I beleive the time to become VAT registered and a Ltd. Co. should be as soon as you can afford an accountant. There are quite a few expense to being Ltd. but there are lots of benefits!

Good luck, things are going pretty well for us and we started as resellers.

thing is you need to get a form stamped by your bank for worldpay to be setup, when I took the form into hsbc they wouldnt sign it because they said I cant use my personal acc for business purposes. So it looks like I will have to get a business account. cheers for all the help