How does VAT work? Confused

[WTF0ver]

I've been involved in organising an industry event. We were charging a set amount and payments were collected by a third party. However I have had to invoice certain people who could not pay by credit card.

And I'm now a bit worried about the VAT aspect. I'm not sure if VAT should have been charged on top of the ticket price? So if we charged £200 a ticket would there be extra on top as VAT? Or would the VAT be included in that amount. If it was included would our company be paid the full £200 or would the VAT amount be claimed back
by the attendees (not sure how that works, is it the company you've paid that you get VAT back from or someone else?!).

In short I'm wondering if we'll be getting the full amount charged for these tickets or have I accidentally undercharged them?

I did see an invoice from the 3rd party payment company that seemed to infer VAT was included but I'm still a little worried that we won't be getting the full amount charged. But there was no mention of "plus VAT" when we set this up. It was just oh we'll charge £200 for tickets.

Thanks!

Are you VAT registered?

The company I work for is, yes.

Ask your company’s internal accountant to explain it to you

There are special rules for VAT and events

Check with your accounts department or the company finance person?

it depends on company policy/costing. is the gross ticket price supposed to be £200 (therefore including VAT already - £167 net and £33 VAT) or is £200 net, therefore you should be charging VAT on top.

If VAT is included you should be providing your clients with a VAT receipt.

Can you explain a bit more? Is this an event that is part of the company's business or are you just booking and collecting the money for an event for a different organisation that you belong to ie your business is a shop in Little Town and you have booked the village hall for the Association of Little Town shopkeepers and every member is paying a share of the cost of hiring the hall?

Hi it's part of the company's business. Not something we usually do (hence the confusion). I'm thinking it's included but it was never explained to me that way, just "Tickets will cost £200".

Surely this should have been discussed with the company's accountants before plucking a £200 figure out of the air?

If the people buying the tickets are VAT registered themselves, they will expect a VAT invoice whether they pay an invoice or by credit card, so they can reclaim the VAT.

But if you're VAT registered and the event is subject to VAT according to the rules, the price you charge needs to include VAT and you then issue a VAT receipt either to everyone, or those who need it. The price is the same whether the attendees are or aren't subject to VAT.

So for your £200, people pay the £200 and that's that for anyone not VAT registered. For anyone VAT registered, they can reclaim the VAT paid in their return.

Ok thanks for explaining. This is the first time we've done something like this event and it's been a huge learning curve (probably first and last time but the event itself went very well, just v stressful to organise). I just wasn't sure about the VAT aspect but think it's ok now.

The £200 will be VAT inclusive meaning your company will need to pay £40 per ticket in VAT when they do their VAT return. So the customer pays £200, your company gets £160 of it. Some people may ask for a VAT receipt to claim it back.

If a company earns more than £80,000 PA (don't know the exact figure but it's around that), they must be VAT registered but being VAT registered means you can also claim back VAT on certain things so while they are giving HMRC 20% of everything in VAT, the accountant will claim back VAT on eligible supplies for the business. So a company works out how much VAT they need to pay, deduct off what they can claim back in VAT then make a payment to HMRC for that amount. There's pros and cons of being VAT registered