taxing question ?

cervushunter

Well-Known Member
Hi all,

Have you or anybody you know been "had" by the taxman in respect of payments from gamedealers for game :confused:

We are not talking thousands of pounds income, but throughout the years it does add up. ;)

ATB cervushunter :D
 
I would argue that even a moderate income gained from payments from game dealers would not actually make a profit by the time you take into account all costs.

If you add up the costs of equipment (both firearms, glass and clothing), fuel, ammunition, any lease payments that you might make, even accomodation if you travel to shoot then this will probably exceed the revenue recieved.

If you make no profit, then you should be liable for no tax as you pay tax on profit and not turnover.

Gez
 
Taxman is notorious for targetting buisnesses which deal in cash - that's game dealers/butchers!

If they had an inspection it would link back to everyone who has supplied them, with proper larder records they are required to keep it would not take much to find out who that was. Then the stalker needs to show accounts for the previous 6 tax years.

By law you need to keep and submit these records, and you need to declare all income, on a tax return - if the tax man doesnt send you one then you need to have been asking for one every year - it doesn't matter if you make a profit or not, that is for the tax system to decide based on the figures you submit.

Even without a profit there is no income threshold below which you do not have to submit a return.

So, when the taxman cometh and you have no records he'll make a guess as to how much he reckons you've made and tax you for it. Even if you do have records to show you made a loss he'll still stick you with a whacking great fine for every tax year you didn't declare it, and may take you to court to boot.

The best bit is that without records he won't limit his estimate of your income to the last 6 years. He'll base it on every year he thinks you've been doing it.

There is no sin greater than depriving the goverment of the money it needs to pay for the Home Secretary's husband to watch porn on pay per view.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

:(
 
I would look further into this if you are worried, but I believe that you are allowed to have hobbies even those which see you accepting money.

If the hobby has not been with the intent of making a profit, and none is made then it is a hobby. If you do it to make a profit, then it is a business even if no profit is actually made.

Also AFAIK the fines are limited to 100% of the money that you owe in taxes. If there is no profit and therefore no money is owed then the fines cannot be levied.

As an example, I registered as self employed 3 or 4 years ago. I changed my mind about the business venture and did not actually end up trading and so didn't bother to send in a tax return (twice!). When I eventually did get round to it (very late) I rang up and was told that I should send a letter to confirm that i didn't trade and in the end went into my local hmrc office to sort it out with an advisor face to face. They confirmed that although being late in filing a tax return I 'should' be liable to a fine, as no money was owed they could not fine me, and it was all sorted out with no cost to myself.

If you are worried look up hmrc website and give your tax office a call with a hypothetical question about your hobby and the implications. That way you will get the answer from the horses mouth so to speak rather than taking the word of someone on here, as obviously one of us (and it could just as well be me as anyone else) is obviously mistaken.

If you do ring them, it would be interesting to hear the results to either put others mind at rest or give people a heads up to take records.

One last point, if you did register as being self employed and make a loss AFAIK (and again I may have misunderstood what hmrc told me at the time) you can actually write this loss off against any other income you may have and actaully pay less tax - but obviously this is an onerous process of record keeping and filing of tax returns and something that I decided was actually not worth the effort.

Gez
 
One other thing you need to be aware of is that since Customs & Excise merged with Inland revenue, the IR bit now have better access to VAT return details - these are like 3 monthly tax returns and it's easy to ask for supplier details. If you are selling venison, then it's a cost to the dealer - you can bet he'll be keeping detailed tax records of whom he gets it from.


To the taxman you look no different to every tax dodger they see with the same excuses (no disrepect meant).

As Gez says, if you have made no profit - and can prove the fact, then you might get away with just a fine for not putting in tax returns. In which case a fresh start could be better.

If you have no records at all then they will look at other stalkers on their books for an assessment of how much you are likely to have earned. Discretion may be the better part of valour in that case.

If you have been a naughty boy CH, and have no plausible records, then you'd better find some sharpish. ;)

Of course, yours could have been a rhetorical question. I'm sure you're as squeaky clean as the rest of us :rolleyes:
 
And that onerous task of keeping records...

That scope, binoculars, "good deal" everything else let alone larder equipment.

No receipt means very little on an insurance claim.

You buy a rifle privately and don't keep a receipt then you have little comeback on an insurance claim for damage.

Stan
 
It pays to keep record. (I hated doing it, as I never liked anything kept in writing)it`s surprising what classes as "wet weather gear"to the taxman,he never asked why a wet wether jacket cost #250, I didn`t tell him it was a Laksen.
Put all clothes,rifles,ammo etc etc through your books,fuel (or mileage allowance, depends if business or you own the vehicle) etc etc.
If you got good accountant, they will put you right.
Also, put down the times you went stalking and never saw or shot anything, that is part of your work time, so is claimable too.
If all else fails though, emigrate, I did, and worked out v well for me :D :D :D
Seriousley though, theres 2 things you need in this life which are a good accountant and a good solicitor.
P.S. The U.K and NZ don`t have any reciporical agreements to do with tax, I checked that before we came here :p :p
 
You guys,

Now i wish i hadn't asked the question at all :oops:

Seriously though i shall be keeping more records now :!:

Dog food, dogs , diesel, cloths, guns, ammo, reloading equipment, quad , trailer, time, cleaning equip, bins, comms, computer etc will all be accounted for thanks gents.

Anything else :confused:
 
Along the same lines as this tax debate, would it be worth us setting up a business and registering for VAT?

Myself and a mate on here (clivecleaver) run the pest control, deer management and a shoot on a few farms locally and have been musing over the idea of starting a 'business' and registering for VAT.

If we put the income from game dealers/cash from selling venison as well as the income we may get from people to buy traps and bullets in an account as an income and then buy our gear from this account (which i imagine would come as a loss) how would this stack up for claiming the VAT back? There would be no income tax because there would be no profit (if by some miracle there was then we would re-invest it in kit)

Is it worth the hassle? it occured to us that it would be easier to do it this way than to try and keep our everyday accounts as detailed.

It may not be as simple as that but if anyone can advise that would be great

Dan
 
VAT Registration.

This was something I was considering as I am already Registered as a 'Food Business'. If I became VAT registered too, and put in a yearly tax self assessment to include any venison I might have sold, could I then claim back costs for fuel, ammunition, clothing, high seat purchsase,etc...?? I do much of my stalking on the way to work or on the way home so my daily fuel costs could be greatly 'offset'!
I would probably run at minimal profit/loss and am wondering how much it would cost for the VAT registration if anything? Any thoughts or ideas?? :confused:
 
I am VAT registered for my crayfish trapping business, it works well for me as the crays I sell for food and because there is no VAT on food, I always get a re-payment as I pay VAT on all my outgoings (diesel etc) but do not have any VAT to hand over from my sales. The only exception to this is in winter when I do coarse fish re-stocking, these are vattable so I have to charge VAT and then pay it over to the vat man. To further complicate things, fish like carp and eels are vattable if used to re-stock a lake but not vattable if sold to a fish merchant to go into the food chain.

Something that might or might not help with the tax situation-my company is limited and I am the director so I pay myself enough wages to pay NI (so I get healthcare) but everything else is voted as a dividend, these are tax free.
 
Blimey, complex!

But basically do-able,

Can the company be limited and have 2 directors?

Would the venison sold to the game dealer have VAT as its food?

I think that we will have top root out some proper advice for our situation for the pros and cons.................it cant be that easy!
 
Yes you can have more than 1 director and I don't know how you would get on with not charging VAT on venison, I expect it would be ok as it's certainly the case with crayfish that they can go to a merchant and they are not vattable as they are classed as food but then again there are some funny old laws surrounding deer. I would say check with an accountant as it's quite complex! Also find out how much they would charge for forming a limited company for you, I seem to think mine was about £120.
 
Vat registration largely depends on who your clients are, most people will not hit the compulsory income registration threashold.

e.g. If I'm VAT regd and sell shoes for £10 - my customer who is not VAT regd pays me £11.50.

My mate sells shoes as well, he is not VAT regd, so his £10 shoes only cost the customer £10.

Customer who is not VAT regd can't claim back the £1.50 so customer goes to him while I lose business collecting tax for the govt.

If your customer IS VAT regd, he claims it back anyway so it makes no difference who he goes to.

Rough rule of thumb, if you sell to VAT regd businesses you are better off being VAT regd yourself, if you sell to private people/non-VAT regd businesess you may not be. If people who supply you are not VAT regd then there nowt you can claim back in VAT even if you are VAT regd.

Regarding cars - you pay a 'scale charge' on fuel, so the govt claws back a lot fo the VAT you'd pay on fuel and claim back yourself.

Also, equipment is a 'capital' item, not a running cost - you can't stick a whole £1200 rifle or any other bit of kit in your tax return to offset profits - you can only use about 25% of the cost as a writing down allowance each year, same with cars. Bullets would class as a running cost 100% deductable! reloading gear would not.
 
Thanks for that Nix, I knew it couldnt be as simple as it looks.

Can you only claim the tax back on the depreciation of the capital items (eg a rifle), how about stuff like truck tyres?

Not looking quite so attractive now, but still going to make some sort fo model up of our situation to see if there is any benefit.

You mentioned minimum income threshold, what would that be?

Dan
 
It's £67,000. That's income, not profit - so you need to register even if you make a loss.

Repairs and maintenance are running costs. Couldn't put a new gun or boots through because in theory they could last for many years and still have residual value - long after you have depreciated their theoretcial value to zero. Tyres on the other hand will wear away to having no value at all. Paying to get your gun repaired would be OK.

The 25% rule is based on cars, which can depreciate to sod all after 5 years, with a long life item like a gun the tax man may want you to use a lower figure. A builder can destroy a power drill with heavy use, and there is no way to avoid that, but a stalker will care for their gear with the intention of making it last forever - my boots are 15 years old and going strong, my binos are 30 years old, I'll keep my rifle to give to my son in 15 years.

Set up a spread sheet, with you incoming/ourgoings, and see how it looks when you are and are not VAT registered.

Talk to your local business link, they're usually pretty good. Be wary of getting yourself on HMRC's radar if you dont have to - they will not provide impartial advice and if they become aware of anything 'interesting' then by law they have to investigate.

I'm VAT registered but thats because it sends a message to customers and suppliers, which is an important consideration.

http://www.businesslink.gov.uk
 
Thats what i was thinking, dont want to let the wrong people know that there is an income, however small.

The £67,000 pretty much puts us out i reckon.

Thankyou for the input, i reckon it mihgt be easier to run it from individual accounts and keep records, who knows it might decrease our income tax!
 
Sorry, just to clarify - the 67k is the compulsory registration threshold - you can voluntarily register at any level below that, and a lot of people do.

The govt encourages it because it means more of the citizens are being taxed and the taxes levied by and collected by its own citizens on the govts behalf. Sweet deal!

oops, sorry - we are not yet citizens, we are still subjects!
 
Mossy Dog, you can be VAT registered voluntarily if you want to be, it doesn't cost anythingas far as I know. The potential downside is that you have to then charge VAT on your products, however, if your products are food (as in my case) then they are not rateable/zero rated so you get the benefits of claiming VAT back on your purchases (wet weather gear, bait, waders, boots, stationery etc) but you don't have to charge your customers vat. You can even claim VAT back on your dog food if they are classed as guard dogs for the company and there is no specified list of breeds to be classed as a guard dog, hence I have a springer and a lurcher guarding my fish house.
 
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