trade vet

Great post AA....it was definateley like that.....All the main dealer sales managers were on the ‘iron lung’.

We had an interesting haggler in this morning.We have a mint old swapper up for £1500.This punter ( not of these shores) has a scrap swapper and we offer £200 to be polite.A while later he offers us £100 plus his scrap.Our guy says no thank you and you may be better off going elsewhere.Now I suppose you have to make allowances for cultural differences but I did get a annoyed when 15 minutes later he comes back in and then offers £1000 plus his scrap.We did not explain that we considered his new offer as an insult as he would not have understood.We thought we had got rid of him then 30 mins later a phone caller asks ‘ what is best price’.....I left at that point.

Well played...and good luck.

£800 for a half page in Midlands AT mag ? That was a bit salty !

Come back/where are they now. Whatever happened to Betginge,I think he was a sort of angry version of BHM......good value. What about Green Giant,he gave me some stick,came over as the dealer principle of Jack Barclay but I suspected he was an F and I man at a Skoda dealership. Rt Honorable Jim Reid,he ‘spit the dummy’with me,I think he went on to better things,probably now advising Elon Musk

One of my favourites was one from Tradex describing a pitch nearbye keeping stock for years and some Clio which had been there so long it was used as a marker post.

Not many traders bought a guide back then,you just used to ‘pick them up ‘from main dealers.£5000 got you 10 descent cars to retail.However a 20 car open pitch could cost £20k (key money) and you paid in ‘readies’.I do remember the old guys then ( a bit like me now) complaining that the trade was shot,you had to pay VAT and the authorities were clamping down on clocking da da da.

This all sounds like ‘Enron’ accounting to me.You have to be carefull,even if your accountant allows you to account for unpaid labour in a certain way,an HMRC inspector may interpret it differently and disallow it with a vengeance.It is with mistakes like this that HMRC possibly via a VAT inspection could give them reason to start an enquiry....Anyone on here had one of them ?

I had forgotten about Autofreeway.We had a contract for 2 pages in AT and 2 in Autofreeway and I think it was for £2000 per week inc VAT.Sounds expensive but infact it wasn’t because you could earn more than that in finance commission alone just over the weekend.......past glories again..

Everyone did their own thing.On a half page some might have 10 photos with limited descriptions down the sides and another 25 in text centrally.Others might have no photos at all just text and advertise 50 or 60 in small print.The mag came out on Thursday and the phone would start ringing in the morning.Happy Days !

I think on line was cheap then because AT mag was still doing the business.We will never be able to replicate the cracking business that came from AT mag which appeared expensive at £400 for a half page in the 90’s.AT mag was brilliant....then the internet arrived.

Most amusing,rude,annoying,fraudulent or bullshit posts etc....Lifetime achievement award...I will sponsor that and nominate myself for the award ( apparently that is OK ).......What about...Cock up of the year......I would also be up for that one !

That sounds like a good business model.

Cash ! Who has cash now.The punters who have their own money tend to have it in non accessible deposit accounts earning 0.05% so it takes 2 weeks before a handover.Cash is dangerous,expensive to bank and if you insist on it ,HMRC will take a kean interest in your business and if you make a small banking mistake ( they don’t do mistakes) they will assess you for a telephone number amount and leave you to prove otherwise.

Great ‘blog post’ bullshit Jamie.However the bottom line is that buried in your ‘infomercial’ you appear to admit that you are not yet recognised by HMRC to deliver MTD.Am I right or wrong !

P38 Lightning....Blackbushe Airport.....that must be a good story !

Would it not be possible ( if you were that way inclined) to raise an invoice for the labour but then not send it to your customer.It then eventually becomes a bad debt which can be written off. Risk reward wise,I wouldn’t bother. It must be interesting how Dave accounts for his work when he says he sometimes gets paid in local produce.How does HMRC treat that,there must be some special dispensation for highland inhabitants.

Every chance if you have an insider.

If you run a ltd company and your personal car belongs to and is maintained and paid for by you,you can charge the company for your business mileage.However as Justin says that could be just the excuse HMRC need to start an enquiry ( they go on for years).

Any Private use of a company or business owned car is a taxable benefit.You can only claim VAT back on a car if it is wholly used for business use and you can prove it is not availible for private use which of course is impossible.So if you were caught out having reclaimed VAT on your VAT Qualifying ‘smoker’,they would make you repay it.....nice little earner for HMRC

On the other hand just spotted this one on HMRC.It appears to me that it is saying that with any private use of a VAT Qualifying Car,you are liable to repay the VAT.Travelling back and forwards to work for instance was deemed ‘private use’.and probably still is.The mind boggles,....that annoying flash trader with the ex Lex RRover Sport he runs round in which he has up for £60k etc...etc

Hi AD You never sold Ladas then ! The Trade hated them so they were for nowt.You got great margins on them,no comebacks and the punters where easy to deal with.I can still recall one punters comment c 1988 “people can laugh at me as much as they want,£2k for an 18 month old car ,£100 a year Insurance and I can park it anywhere and I don’t need to lock it up. In fact I have a neighbour who was the biggest Lada retailer in the UK,he only had 2 pitches. Happy Days.

Great stuff Nick well spotted.This is a recent and very helpfull new direction by HMRC and worthy of an article in Car Dealer Mag.Most of us employ accountants who you assume know everything to save you money but stuff like this just passes them by.

Hi Noacross Thank you,because I have been in this job forever and stitched up many times, I tend to focus on the potential downside too much.I am used to the normal clawbacks for early settlements and defaults etc.on prime finance which there were few.However it is about 7 years since I was on the front line and things have changed.I have been used to dealing with Black Horse,Santander and Close in the past and if they are interested they should show up and I will see how their contracts look.I don’t think we can do sub prime as it appears you have to be a qualified social worker to offer it ! Regarding business,still slow,sold a few,bought a few at the door,had problems with the website although it has been up for only 3 weeks.One thing,we have a busy main road location but we are getting very few ‘walk ins’.We have not yet established what we should be selling.It might turn out to be an over 10 or an under 5 grand pitch or if it is a sub prime pitch then I will be out !

Just received our ‘ chucky licence’,it has taken about 6 weeks since applying.So we are now getting brokers reps come in and phone calls from others.I am presently wading through the small print in a brokers contract and the potential liability for void deals is far reaching.No mention of commission yet.I am not sure how anybody can be doing sub prime when among the CRA stuff and other things it also appears you could be made liable if the hirer is ‘considered’ to be vulnerable or of a particular mental state.One other broker has been on wanting to sign us up saying we have to pay them £150 per deal as their intro and acceptance fee.They have said,just add the £150 to the finance balance ! the way I read FCA Regs That is illegal and will probably guarantee to bounce back as a void deal when the hirer defaults.The small print is ambiguous,this particular agreement is a minefield....I think I will stick to prime lenders.