Scaffolding and Vat

[Barryscotland]

Anybody no for sure if I should be paying VAT on the scaffolding hire?

[newhome]

46 minutes ago, Barryscotland said:

Anybody no for sure if I should be paying VAT on the scaffolding hire?

You need to pay standard VAT on the hire element but the erection and dismantling counts as labour so can be zero rated. So your invoice needs to be apportioned. 30% - 50% zero rating seems so be what most people achieve. You can’t get ‘free’ hire in return for paying the labour costs. HMRC clarified that somewhere. 
 

https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/vat-construction/vconst02750

 

[nod]

Most companies will offer to knock the vat off for cash 

[Conor]

As above, I paid cash for the erection, no VAT. Hire is paid monthly and there is VAT on it. IF you can pay cash like this, suggest paying first month of hire at the same time to save a bit of VAT.

[newhome]

As a warning if you pay cash, check that your scaffolder has put the insurance cover on the kit and an official tag is attached to the scaffolding. Ours didn’t do either. We learnt a big lesson that way as we thought that by employing a registered scaffolder everything would be above board. We didn’t know that the scaffolding should have had a tag until someone fell off and we had health and safety out. The scaffolder had sneaked back the day after the accident and attached the tag and insurance details to the kit, dated the day after the accident. He told H&S that he had erected the scaffolding but not said that we could start using it which was a shocking lie as it had been there for weeks by then and we had evidence of communications telling him when the timber frame was arriving and his team erected it just in time. He had also been back a few times while it was being used. IMO scaffolders are one on the most difficult / untrustworthy trades out there so negotiate cash payments with eyes wide open! 

 

 

[1AN]

"IMO scaffolders are one on the most difficult / untrustworthy trades"

100% agree. We had our Scaffolder confirm in writing the costs, and even then he added on extra and threatened to take scaffold down if we didn't pay. In future, I am considering avoiding brick-block construction, just so I won't need a scaffold. Or buy and install scaffold poles myself, and go as far as taking out professional indemnity insurance. That's the lengths I will go to, to avoid using Scaffolding companies.