Used Furnitures

is second hand furniture sales VAT rated?

We are at present a furniture shop and we pay VAT.We are thinking of switching to second hand furniture buying and selling,can we get rid of our VAT registration

Public Comments

1. No. If you are over the threshold for VAT registration you must charge VAT on sales of secondhand goods. Auction houses pay it too. Surely paying VAT is no problem for you if you are charging it to your customers? James, how is VAT a "Great British Swindle?" The whole of the EU has VAT (or TVA in France) - it was originally intended to be the same rate throughout the EU. So it is a Europewide swindle, though not a EU swindle - there was a purchase tax long before we joined the EU.
2. Everything sold has to have VAT paid on it aswell. The great british tax swindle! If you're selling this from a registered business, you should know the rules with VAT. There is a limit to how much you can sell before you have to get VAT registered.
3. Certain items are zero or nil rated (exempt), but in this case the full rate applies. If the business makes more than in £61,000 then it can reclaim VAT on purchases and balance it against sales. So it may work against you if you start to but second-hand furniture and can't reclaim VAT on purchases from businesses etc and buy from the public. Oh and p.s. VAT is UK is far less than Germany's 19%, France 19.6%, Ireland 21% and Sweden 25% (most of europe is higher than UK)