Vintro Pro
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Vintro Pro
NL · FR · EN
Here the exclusion sits right next to your piece. Precious metals, precious stones and pearls are excluded by name — a piece of jewellery is not.
A piece of jewellery as an object falls under the margin. The material it is made of does not.
Second-hand jewellery falls under the margin scheme, but UK law leaves precious metals and precious stones out of second-hand goods, and Belgium also excludes pearls. The moment you break the piece down to material, the answer changes.
Article 2 of the Value Added Tax (Special Provisions) Order 1995 leaves one item out of the definition of second-hand goods that hits no other type of goods as hard: precious metals and precious stones. Belgium’s exclusion list adds pearls.
That does not mean a second-hand ring falls outside the scheme. It means two trade flows run side by side in this business, with different VAT treatment, and that you may not mix them.
A vintage ring, an old brooch or an inherited piece bought from a private individual and resold as jewellery is tangible movable property that can be used again. That is second-hand goods under article 2 of the 1995 Order, and the margin scheme applies.
Buy that same piece to melt it, or buy gold scrap by the gram, and you are not buying jewellery but precious metal. gov.uk lists precious metals among the goods you cannot use a margin scheme for, and between VAT-registered businesses, scrap and broken jewellery sold at around the value of its gold falls under the special accounting scheme for gold (VAT Notice 701/21, section 11.2).
Antique jewellery may additionally count as an antique, more than 100 years old, or as a collector’s item; article 12(2) of the 1995 Order names both separately. For your bookkeeping that changes nothing: it stays a margin sale.
Article 2 of the Value Added Tax (Special Provisions) Order 1995 defines second-hand goods as “tangible movable property that is suitable for further use as it is or after repair, other than motor cars, works of art, collectors’ items or antiques and other than precious metals and precious stones”. Article 12(2) opens the margin scheme to “works of art, antiques and collectors’ items” and “second-hand goods”.
That is the whole test, and it is a test about the goods, not about your trade. The power to charge VAT on the profit margin sits in section 50A of the VAT Act 1994, which also names motor vehicles separately. Article 12(3) of the 1995 Order adds the purchase side: you must have taken possession of the goods on a supply on which no VAT was chargeable, or on another margin-scheme sale. gov.uk (VAT margin schemes) puts it plainly: you cannot use a margin scheme for “any item you bought for which you were charged VAT”. Belgium, which follows the EU VAT Directive, keeps its own exclusion list: FPS Finance names new goods, precious metals, precious stones and pearls, renovated goods, goods consumed on first use and goods that cannot be used again in the same state, under article 58, § 4 of the Belgian VAT Code and Royal Decree no. 53 of 23 December 1994. The four-country panel below shows where that changes the answer.
The example is a vintage gold ring: bought for €320.00, sold for €690.00. Put your own figures in.
Sold at a loss: no margin on this item, so no VAT. In the UK you work item by item: the loss counts as zero and gives you nothing back.
The VAT is inside the margin, not on top of it. That is the mistake this calculator is built to prevent: 20% on this example’s margin of 370 is 74.00, while in the UK you owe one-sixth, 61.67 — the 16.67% gov.uk quotes. At Belgium’s 21%, the same mistake turns €64.21 into €77.70. How to do this across a whole return period — and why France calculates piece by piece by law — is set out in How do you calculate margin VAT?
The exclusion of precious metals, precious stones and pearls is the sharpest line in this whole series. It does not separate types of shop; it cuts through a single transaction: the same piece can be jewellery on one side of the counter and material on the other.
In practice: sell to a customer who will wear the ring and you are selling jewellery. Sell by weight to a refiner and you are selling precious metal, and the margin scheme is not in play.
Loose stones taken out of a setting to be sold separately fall outside the scheme for the same reason: article 2 excludes precious stones. And investment gold, which gov.uk names separately among the exclusions, has its own rules (VAT Notice 701/21); put that case to your accountant before treating a purchase that way.
In the UK, whether jewellery fall under the scheme is a matter of UK law: HMRC runs its own margin schemes under section 50A of the VAT Act 1994. Belgium, the Netherlands and France all follow the same EU VAT Directive (2006/112/EC). Each country interprets the rules itself; where that makes a difference for jewellery, this page says so. The rate and the calculation method always differ.
Margin across the whole return period. Article 58, § 4 VAT Code and RD no. 53.
Item by item (Wet OB 1968, art. 28b). Per period only if the inspector designates you on request (Uitvoeringsbesluit OB 1968, art. 4c(1)(b)). An antique or collector’s item goes per period by default.
Legally piece by piece, but globalisation per period is allowed, with no prior election. CGI art. 297 A; BOFiP § 260.
HMRC’s own scheme, outside the EU. Below the registration threshold you pay nothing.
Article 2 of the 1995 Order leaves precious metals out of second-hand goods, and Belgium names them on its exclusion list. A sale by the gram is not the sale of second-hand goods.
Precious stones are excluded, and in Belgium pearls too. Out of the setting it is no longer jewellery but material.
In the UK you must keep a stockbook that tracks each item sold under the margin scheme individually (gov.uk, VAT margin schemes). In this trade that is not a formality but the heart of it.
Jewellery almost always comes from private individuals and therefore without an invoice. Without a purchase invoice in your records — which you may make out yourself — and a stockbook entry, your margin cannot be demonstrated (gov.uk, VAT margin schemes).
This is an explanation, not tax advice. Whether the margin scheme is the right choice in your case, and how to enter it in your return, is a question for your accountant.
As jewellery, yes. A used ring, brooch or necklace is tangible movable property that is suitable for further use, which is the definition in article 2 of the Value Added Tax (Special Provisions) Order 1995. But the same definition leaves out precious metals and precious stones; it does not name pearls. Belgium does exclude pearls. Sell the piece as material rather than as an ornament and the scheme does not apply.
No. gov.uk lists precious metals among the goods you cannot use a margin scheme for, and article 2 of the 1995 Order leaves them out of second-hand goods. Between VAT-registered businesses, gold sold at around its metal value falls under the special accounting scheme for gold (VAT Notice 701/21, section 11.2).
Loose precious stones are excluded: gov.uk names precious stones among the goods you cannot use a margin scheme for. UK law does not name pearls; Belgium’s FPS Finance does, alongside precious metals and precious stones.
In the UK, at 20%, the VAT is one-sixth of the margin, if you sell it as jewellery: €370 ÷ 6 = €61.67 (in pounds the sum works the same way). In Belgium, at 21%, €64.21 (€370 × 21/121). Sell the same ring as scrap gold and the margin scheme does not apply.
The same question, a different kind of piece. The answer differs more often than you would expect.
Every piece gets its own purchase price, selling price and scheme. Vintro Pro keeps margin goods separate from the rest and works out your margin per return period.
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