Forever Living !! Want to know how to register and file tax

[gg1234]

Hi

Has anyone done forever living here .I am confused about the registration process .You register as sole traderor company Ltd and if yes do you have to register your company too under any Act.How does it works let me know

Thanks

[Kri5ty]

I'd like to know this too!

[NorksAreMessy]

Careful now.

You do know that this is a thinly disguised pyramid scheme and you are unlikely to make any money at all, let alone pay tax.
Please get some real, impartial advice before undertaking any business endeavour.

[TalkinPeace]

Just did a bit of looking up - Moneysavingexpert ....
its a pyramid scheme.

Ask the person who offered to sign you up why they want to hand some of their customer base to you ?

[Izzyg89]

I do not work with Forever Living, and have no interest in them. However, I can tell you that Forever Living are a member of the Direct Sales Association, which is the Industry Standard body for the Direct Sales industry. DSA member companies operate in accordance with legislation which regulates this method of selling for both consumers and sellers. Pyramid schemes are illegal under UK legislation. Forever Living is a legitimate direct selling business.

If you are considering joining Forever Living I would recommend that you contact the company directly and ask your questions. Also take a look at the Direct Sales Association website. The advice above to get impartial advice is sound no matter what business you are considering setting up.

Direct selling provides a legitimate business opportunity. However, if anyone tells you that it is a way to make a lot of money quickly and easily start running in the opposite direction.

[TalkinPeace]

The DSA is a fees based membership organisation.
They do not refuse memberships.
They are not a statutory or regulated body.
(think checkatrade with pyramids on)

ANY business that involves making more money from getting resellers than products is a rip off. The maths is clear - and has been for 100 years

[changeychangechangeychange]

It costs about £1000 a year to run a limited company. They are cheap to set up but even making them dormant costs money and to have accountant and returns is easily £1000

[TalkinPeace]

changey
No it does not.
Mine costs NOTHING like that much.
Nor does DHs
Nor do those of my clients.

[changeychangechangeychange]

It does if you want to have accountant prepared accounts to be used to get a mortgage etc. The payroll also costs as well. If you only need basic accounting and no payroll then you can do it yourself but much harder to get the accounts accepted. You can do your own payroll but for the cost unless you only earn a pittance per hour it is cheaper to get it done by a company.

[TalkinPeace]

changey
I am an accountant who prepares statutory accounts and submits them to Companies House and HMRC.
For most small / micro entities the payroll can be done perfectly well for free using BPT RTI

For a mortgage they want the Director's SA return anyway, not the Company accounts.
I regularly do rent and mortgage references for clients.

It does not have to cost £1000 a year to run a Ltd Co.

[changeychangechangeychange]

Ok.

Business banking- minimum £10 month after free start up period.
Public liability insurance, employers liability insurance and professional indemnity- variable but £250 ish for a basic £5 million policy for a lowish risk venture
£13 companies house return
Payroll- here it is £10-20 a month up to 10 employees
Accountancy fees

Cant see how it costs less than £1000 a year

[TalkinPeace]

Neither of my companies pay for business banking. - one with the Co op, the other with Santander.

Insurance is the same if a sole trader so nothing to do with the company

Agree about the £13

Payroll - choosing not to use BPT is nothing to do with it being a company - would be the same if it was a sole trader with employees

Accountancy - again, part of being a business, not a limited company ( I'm the one who does the charging so I do know )

[gg1234]

gosh !! My question was lost in the middle .I joined forver previous year and made zero income .I was asked to file tax even for zero income and 200 pound less so I want to know the answer to this.I have my utr number account to which I had forever related etctec and all other crap .In my opinion dont join such a sham scheme. I joined and realised it after 2 months .If there are any accountants here please advise ......

[TalkinPeace]

yup, if you have been sent a return you have to file it.
2013/14 was due at the end of last month.
If you made a loss you can offset it against your other income for the year

2014/15 returns go live on 6th April

[TalkinPeace]

Pursue
What proportion of your net profit comes from selling goods directly to end users?
What proportion comes from signing up new sellers?
What proportion comes from wholesaling goods to those you have signed up?

As the accurate responses to those questions will show clearly whether or not it is a pyramid scheme.

Please could you also confirm what proportion of your turnover is paid in commission to the person who hired you, as against purchases of goods for sale.

[TalkinPeace]

Interesting.
Thankyou.
I'm still not in the least bit reassured that its not a pyramid scheme - and protection against such is weaker in Germany than in the UK
but at least you have your eyes wide open.

[KirstieG92]

im interested in why people think, forever is a pyrimard scheme?
A company this size and that operates in over 156, wouldn't still be in buisness if it was a pyrimard scheme!
A pyrimard scheme means that the people below will do not make as much as the people above, I'm sorry but have you looked at the "normal jobs" spectrum?
If you work for Walmart or McDonald's for instance, and your a chasier can you honest to god say there is any way in hell you are going to be earning anywhere near as much as a manager or CEO? You are working to make the people at the top rich, while you are living on "minimum wage"

With forever you can earn more than your "up line" or sponsor, and I know this of hand you can, I work with the Company and when I first joined, I was earning £450, a girl I brought on within that one month earned £784.95. So if it's a pyrimard scheme how does that work out?

For the questions about sales - 1. Almost all "income" is through sales to friends & family.

1. The company pays you the difference in commission to your downline until they reach manager, (usually about 5%) which by the way can be done in 6 weeks.
   
2. You do not "wholesale goods to those that sign up"
   

I have been in this buisness for 4months, and have already hit 2 promotions, my next being manager!
Tell me, how long have you been in your current "9-5 job" and how many times have you been promoted? I was in my "9-5 job" for 6 years, earning £1074 a month with no promotion, I'm now earning £2400 a month within 4 months with 2 promotions ??
I know what one I like best!

To the poster my email address is [email protected], message me and il send you all the tax info ??

[Merguez]

What is a 'pyrimard'?

[Hoppinggreen]

It's a kind of " buisness" I believe.

[crofty74]

Pyramid schemes are illegal. A company that has been around for more than three decades doesn't need to trick people in to joining. If it was a pyramid scheme it would have been shut down by now. You can make a lot of money in the business, you can make nothing - it depends on how much work you put in. It's a network marketing company and to make a lot of money in the industry you do need to build a team. You don't have to build a team, you can join and just buy the products at a discounted rate if you want. There is no pressure to bring people in if you don't want to. However the marketing plan works in such a way that the more people you bring in and help to earn money the more you benefit. You don't take any money from those you bring in but the more they make the more you make because the company pays you a percentage of their sales. Every distributor is different and with thousands working across the UK some are more professional than others in how they go about promoting their business. I have a full time job that earns me £65k a year and I work a Forever business along side it. The marketing plan is solid and if you work it to your advantage it can and does make you a strong income. Network marketing companies get a lot of stick and some are a bit dubious but until you know how a company works you can't pass informed judgement on it. My experience has been a good one - spent a year just selling products (the products have cured my skin issues and dramatically eased customers with chrohns and celiac to name but a few). In this first year I earned very little. Recently I've decided to build a team and can see the money coming in. No distributor will do well twisting peoples arms to join - you don't benefit from people joining you benefit from people working towards their goals with your support.

[borisgudanov]

'If you work for Walmart or McDonald's for instance, and your a chasier can you honest to god say there is any way in hell you are going to be earning anywhere near as much as a manager or CEO? You are working to make the people at the top rich, while you are living on "minimum wage" '

It is not a defining characteristic of pyramid schemes that those at the "top" earn more than those at the "bottom". That is true of pretty well all businesses. More relevant is where the risk is distributed. In a pyramid scheme all the risks gravitate to the bottom of the structure and those at the top are protected from them.

A pyramid scheme may be defined as follows: a business is a pyramid scheme if individual distributors' viability is contingent upon their recruiting other distributors. If a distributor can stay in business, never mind realise the returns claimed for the opportunity, merely by selling product and without recruiting others, then fair enough. By this measure Avon for example is not a pyramid scheme. Its distributor network is sustainable.

But if to make a living distributors have to recruit other distributors, then the scheme will collapse, and those at the bottom will get it in the shorts. The market cannot expand indefinitely.

Put another way: if each distributor recruits another 6 distributors - not an unreasonable target, one might think - and each of those 6 recruits another 6, and so on, one might be persuaded that this is realistic and could be sustained indefinitely. Or at least for a modest 13 generations, right? But after 13 generations the network has 13 billion distributors. That's almost twice the population of the planet.

Forever Living is a pyramid scheme. McDonald's isn't.

[Seryn2ann]

Hi all, everyone on here is so opinionated and of course RIGHT! i understand the concept of a pyramid scheme, I understand how forever living works, what i don't understand is why are some of you so negative about it? human rights gave us free will and so if people want to take the chance and join forever living what makes it your business to stand in their way? In my head i'm thinking if i don't take the chance i'll never know and will always wonder what if. and if i take the chance and it doesnt work well at least i tried. and ok i might loose £200 but in today's society that ent a lot :-)

[JanineMelnitzGlasses]

Technically Forever Living isn't a pyramid scheme, it's business model is designed as a multi-level marketing platform. As there are legitimate goods to sell, it is legal because there is the opportunity for distributors to make financial gains. BUT, the products tend to be sold to distributors at higher prices than they would be bought back for (should the distributor decide to leave); recruiters tend to 'employ' lots of distributors in the same region reducing sales opportunities for individual distributors. Therefore, distributors tend to sell to family & friends, and once they have their products the distributor has limited customers to sell to.

You can read more about it multi-level marketing here

Personally, I don't agree with them (same for herbal-life, yoonique, etc.,). If you haven't already signed up OP, do your homework before you commit.