Small Business/Hobby-Under 18's

[ballen]

Hi,
Me and my freind who are both currently 17 wish to start an online business selling custom badges and also hope to have an affliate earning money from another website that sells custom t-shirts. Anyway, we dont have very high expectations regarding profit. I wasn't looking into registering the company at all untill I found out the affliate site wanted the businesses VAT number. I'm sure we wont reach £60,000 a year and really don't want the extra hassle especailly when we are both still at college. I have an unused Nationwide Flexiaccount that we were going to use to recieve payments so no need for a seprate business account. Basically, what should we do? Is it worth registering?

Thanks in advance,
Ben

[Alpha]

Ben

The question you need to ask yourself is if you have to be vat registered to be an affiliate of the T shirt site is it likely to be worth it? (My guess is that the answer will be no)

The additional income would have to cover

1) The possible loss of profits on the badge side of the site either directly because you will have to absorb the additional 17.5% you will incur or by reduced sales because you have to increase your selling price to the customer (I am assuming that your customer is a private individual not a vat registered company)

2) The additional record keeping that you will incur to produce your quarterly vat returns.

It will probably be better to see how the badge side of things goes first and then make a decision further down the line. :)

[ballen]

Hi,

Thanks for the reply. I emailed the tshirt company and they said just sign up under the 'private' category and that "the registration of the VAT is only for your advantage. With the VAT number we can transfer yout commission incl. VAT."

So looks like we'll be ok without registering.

Thanks again.
Ben