As a VAT registered company, I wish to provide an agency service to enable people to may be (via credit card) to book into events run by other people who might not be charging VAT themselves. The price to my customer will be the same as that which the event organiser normally charges directly. My fee will be deducted from what I pass on to the event organiser.
For example, an event has a £10 entry fee. The event organiser will ask me to take bookings for which I will charge the customers £10. My fee will be (85p+VAT=)£1 which I will deduct from the ticket price, in effect passing £9 to the event organiser for that booking.
Is this appropriate, or do I have to charge VAT on the full £10?
... would it be very different if I charged the (85p+VAT=)£1 to the entrant and reported a discounted (£9) entry price for the event in the customer's invoice, in which case it would be a simple disbursement?
That sounds OK to me you will need to raise an invoice to your clients showing your commission, probably as a batch list of tickets sold.
I have a client who sells online and he gets an invoice from his online shop host detailing the sales processed and a calculation of the sales commission and the VAT
Would you need to set up a client account so it would be clear that your customer was selling the tickets, you could then invoice out your 85p plus vat to the client and deduct that charge prior to reimbursing them. This is not a definitive answer just an idea!
OK, so technically have I sold the ticket to the end-customer, or has the event organiser? In other words, have I simply passed through a payment in the eyes of the tax man, or has the end customer bought from me?
I think that's the crux of the problem, which is why I think if you had separate client accounts it would show it was your client selling the tickets. Do you have an accountant?
Yes, I'll arrange to discuss this with him, I wanted to see whether it was something simple and obvious first, so thank you for the additional thoughts.
