Hurleys Maestros

[Guest]

I'm hoping my friends advice is watertight, im not a big operator at the moment, but im hoping to expand quite a bit this year. I have no reason to to believe my friend is wrong, and as he says, you only need to provide instances of other companies doing the same thing to prove what your doing is not against the law. Firms like Starbucks would need thousands of companies doing the same thing to stay within the VAT threshold, suppose thats why its only worth it for us small operators.

[Guest]

Good luck to you if you can get away with this.

I spoke to my wife about this who works jointly with tax/vat on ltd company's
Thinking great a loop hole and I can pay less vat.
She basically said if you ever get investigated by vat man you will be in trouble.
Both companies are doing exact same business,so in their eyes they are one business.

And as she said Starbucks have just been investigated about this(not sure on the outcome but as someone says on here they have the big fancy lawyers to sort this).
Also they buy stock ie coffee from a parent company then sell in a coffee shop.they are two completely different businesses.
Think that's how they get away with it.

I looked at setting up two company's. one with toy/Pringles machines.
And another with toy/tattoo type machines.
Only problem is they are all in same sites not separate so it was not feasible.

I assume that you have to be vat registered, due to your turnover. If not, you are a fool, as the vat element comes right out of your profit. If you are on the flat rate scheme and cant reclaim the input vat ( cost of vat on your product), then you are still paying 3-4% out of your profit ( not sure what the current rate is) + the vat you have paid to the supplier for your product (input Vat), which totals up to around 8p in every pound vended going to the vat man.

If you are on the other scheme, where you claim back your input vat, you may be worse off than on the flat rate scheme, as the vat on the £1 vend,( 18p) less the vat on your product is still higher than on the flat rate scheme. (In the case of Maestros at £40 for 96, that is .05 p per pot.)Therefore, vat paid on a £1 sale is around 18p- your 5p and you are still paying the vat man 13p in every pound.

Getting back to Maestros price. It is way too high and Hurleys don't let us know that prices are rising.

I have two limited companies. One company owns 1x tower and 1x pringle tower and buys all the stock from Hurleys and Booker, and is Vat registered. The other company is not VAT registered and owns the rest of the sweet and pringle towers. I buy the stock through the first company, under the pretense that it is buying stock for the two machines it owns, and reclaim the VAT on the stock. I then sell the stock to the other company for a nominal sum (usually £1), which is then sold vat free in the rest of the machines.
According to my source (who is an accountant) claiming that you bought too much stock for your 2 machines, and had to sell it on at a loss, is a perfectly legal way of moving profits around and limiting tax liabilities called 'transfer pricing'. It's quite similar to the way Starbucks buys it's stock above market value from it's other company in Switzerland.

[Guest]

Difference between us and starbucks is they have millions to spare on accountants and solicitors, may be a bit different if the vat man comes knocking on your door.

I have checked this with my accountant and he told me that I would be silly to try this.

[Guest]

Difference between us and starbucks is they have millions to spare on accountants and solicitors, may be a bit different if the vat man comes knocking on your door.

I have checked this with my accountant and he told me that I would be silly to try this.

God loves a tryer!

[Guest]

I've had loads of complaints about them, people just don't like them... Expensive and taste like ****........

[Guest]

To be honest I think they taste like **** too! But you can't argue with sales fugures....

[Guest]

Only do them in bulks now.. Vend them for 50p....

[Guest]

Difference between us and starbucks is they have millions to spare on accountants and solicitors, may be a bit different if the vat man comes knocking on your door.

I have checked this with my accountant and he told me that anyone would be silly to try this.

[Guest]

HI there. The £40 is a typo on the website sorry. They are £38 on all of our price lists.... Website being amended now.
Thanks for letting us know...

[PabloV8]

Was speaking to a customer about vat the other day, it would appear to be vat registered you need a turn over of 70k, guess my 100+ machines are nowhere near that figure now or any day soon.

Guess to be vat registered you must need about 200 to 300 machines - does anyone have anywhere this amount?

Just answered by own question!

200 machines x 30 pots average x 12 = 72000

I need more machines obviously!