Kev Stephenson

But your costs would go down as you could claim the VAT back on them???? e.g 1 day = £350 which breaks down as £100 to you, £100 to the groundie and £150 in fuel, tools and depreiation of assets. You would claim back 17.5% of all that £150 spent so your direct cost per day has gone down by approx £26. You could therefore pass that saving on.

nicely done!! Is it a broken bit you have replaced or 2 small loops joined to make a big one?

If I was doing your tree work each month and suddenly my bill to you went up by 17.5% are you just going to pay up and say nothing? Thought not!! Even on negotiated work that you have won I would be informing people as you will lose some if you won it on price. No problem Mr Jones, your trees will be delt with for £400. He then gets a bill for £470 as you have gone VAT registered between quoting and doing. He is going to be pee'd off. Is your work mainly domestic or commercial? Would your day rate change if you were reclaiming VAT? e.g 'reduce' from £400 a day to £350 a day + VAT or are you just hoping to increase your turnover by 20% and pay the VAT man a small portion of that?

But you need to have the ability to prove which company owns what, I don't want to be looking over my shoulder all the time and having to think which set of accounts do these 3 chains need charging to? But Stephenson Tree Services isn't VAT registered so Huddersfield Logs can't claim back the VAT making the whole exercise pointless.

I run Huddersfield Logs and Stephenson Tree Services, the first is just a part of the second for accountancy purposes and exists more for advertising than anything else. My phone has not stopped ringing for logs since spending £6 ish on the domain name and a couple of hours building a web site. I can't however run it as a seperate business unless I have saws for firewooding and saws for the tree work otherwise which set of accounts do you put them in?

If me and you were pricing the same job for Mr Jones in the village who wants his sycamores down and the 2 quotes were £400 from me and £400 +VAT from you who is he likely to go with? £100 is £100 and is better in Mr Jones's pocket. However if you recalculate your costs based on the vat claimback your £400 per day rate may drop to £350 + VAT per day, a net increase of £20 per year (using next years VAT rate), then Mr Jones may look closer at his 2 quotes. Could you not set up the firewood side of the business as a seperate entity? You would need seperate kit for the firewood business and VAT register this leaving your domestic stuff VAT free. I am sure Skyhuck mentioned he used to do this (a commercial business and domestic business) but as the commercial work increased and took most of his time his commercial business bought the domestic one. It's on an old VAT or LTD co thread somewhere. I would agree that unless most of your work is commercial then price wins so stay VAT free if possible, certainly at 20%.

Jayvee, I think you will find he wants to buy it unprocessed and make the profit himself. Look back at some of the earlier firewood threads, 23-27 tonnes seems to be a 'load' if you can get it, however at this time of year you are more likely to be able to buy a tipper full of rocking horse poo!! Ringing around the tree surgeons might be your best bet at this time of year

When you say personal use, do you mean family use or distance driving? I own a 130 landie for tree work but it is no good as a family vehicle due to only 2 seats, 20ish mpg and being as uncomfortable as you like!! You will also find landies expensive to buy (compared to transits) so for the same sort of money you could run a family car and a transit.

Used to wind me up no end when I was on the chemical works. Why spend time taking a photo of an uncoiled hose pipe and filling in a form about it when in half the time you could have just tidied the thing up. It was always those that were idle sods that filled in the most forms each month yet did the least actual work.

Not true on mine either

I paid £105.?? (inc VAT) for 2 pairs for the 6" timberwolf, genuine blades from Orange plant.

I (and wikipedia) think it is logging up not snedding http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Log_bucking

If you decide not to do it yourself try Yorkshire Stump Grinders I have had excellent service everytime I send them work

Good post, I didn't even know there was a fuel filter within the carb!!

Let me know when you have kev

Not the first and won't be the last there, let the tyres down and he will get it through

No he doesn't - he has a moisture meter that tells him it's 3%, no way in this world is it accurate:001_tt2:

3 what? no way is it 3%

Is the poor bloke who is coming out to wife and mistress out yet or has he opted to come out last?

The reply from WAB is as follows

but does it give me extra points for rarity in the comp?

Now posted on WAB

Not that I noticed but being new to this I didn't 'have a sniff'. They are dying off now, would they still smell?

Tying it to the dogs collar to get it home is a bit harsh!!!

The 3.5T stuff is only for hire or reward so you can take your track car trailer/horse box etc without the need for tacho. You can also run >3.5 tonners with no tacho/O license if it is for pure personal use only (e.g personal horse box truck that you do not charge others to use or big rig campers).