Ebay selling and VAT

[Alison Jones]

Hi

After reading some conflicting forums on VAT on ebay selling:-

I sell second hand books that do not have VAT element.

Some forums I have read that you have to add VAT to the carriage the ebayer pays others saying that the carriage is at same rate as the item you sell and that if you post at post office that is exempt from VAT.

Can anyone please clarify which is correct please?

Thanks

Alison

 

[spidersong]

It depends on the supply you actually make, in most cases with ebay the postage will follow the liability of the goods.

This is because you have entered into a contract for a single supply of delivered goods, the person receives a book which is zero rated, you could say that the cost is made up of book, delivery charge, ebay fees, electricity in running your computer, etc but this doesn't change the fact that what you've supplied is a zero rated book, what elements you choose to cover to ensure you make a profit are immaterial.

If you made a supply of the book, and then entered into a seperate contract to post the book to someone then the postage would be a seperate supply subject to it's own liability which would be taxable. It would be similar to buying a book from a specialist supplier (zero rated) and then asking a seperate courier service to go and pick it up and deliver it to you (standard rated). It's unlikely this later situation would occur on ebay and so the postage is normaly part of the contract for the supply of the item, and it's the liability of the goods that you look at.

Hope this helps.

p.s. if you go to the post office and get them to post it then their supply to you will be exempt from VAT.

HMRC notice 700/24 - Postage and Delivery charges goes into the above in more detail. [ http://customs.hmrc.gov.uk/channels...document&columns=1&id=HMCE_CL_000114#P36_2660 ]

 

[Alison Jones]

Thanks Spidersong for your help, very useful.

Alison