Vintro Pro
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Vintro Pro
NL · FR · EN
Collectors’ items are named separately in the scheme. For stamps the difficulty is not the rule but the box.
Stamps as collectors' items fall under the margin scheme.
Stamps traded as collectors' items fall under the margin scheme. UK law names stamps among collectors' items explicitly.
In the UK, article 12(2) of the Value Added Tax (Special Provisions) Order 1995 opens the margin scheme to collectors’ items, and section 21(5) and (6C) of the VAT Act 1994 count postage and revenue stamps, postmarks, first-day covers and pre-stamped stationery of philatelic interest among them. gov.uk puts it plainly: collectors’ items are stamps, coins and currency and other pieces of scientific, historical or archaeological interest.
The difficulty is administrative. You buy an album, a box or an estate at one price, and sell hundreds of stamps out of it at prices from a few cents to hundreds of euros.
As long as you trade stamps for what they are — issue, condition, rarity — you trade collectors’ items. That is the category the law defines separately.
Buy from a private individual, from an estate or from a colleague working under the margin, and there is no deductible VAT, so the scheme applies.
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 stamp collection: bought for €140.00, sold for €520.00. 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 380 is 76.00, while in the UK you owe one-sixth, 63.33 — the 16.67% gov.uk quotes. At Belgium’s 21%, the same mistake turns €65.95 into €79.80. 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?
In the UK, a stamp only counts as a collector’s item if it is franked, or, if unfranked, is not legal tender and not for use as legal tender (VAT Act 1994, section 21(6C), to which article 2 of the 1995 Order refers). Stamps bought at the post office to resell fail that test. In Belgium they are also new goods, which FPS Finance excludes by name.
Stamps damaged beyond any meaning to a collector are no longer collector’s pieces; Belgium names goods out of use on its exclusion list. In practice that is the residue left over from a bulk purchase.
In the UK, whether stamps 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 stamps, 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.
Per period by default (global accounting, Uitvoeringsbesluit OB 1968, art. 4c(1)). You can opt out in writing to the inspector, for at least five years.
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.
A box at one price yielding hundreds of stamps calls for a record of what you paid. In the UK global accounting is built for this: the margin per VAT period, as long as no single item cost more than £500 (gov.uk). Not a split after the fact.
In the UK, global accounting lets you take the margin per VAT period, carrying a negative margin forward (article 13 of the 1995 Order); in Belgium that is the default. With hundreds of small sales that matters.
A margin sale carries no VAT amount, not even at €1.50 a stamp.
In the UK an unfranked stamp that is still legal tender is not a collector’s item by law. In Belgium FPS Finance expressly excludes new goods.
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.
Yes, as collectors' items. In the UK, section 21(5) and (6C) of the VAT Act 1994 count stamps of philatelic interest among collectors' items, and article 12(2) of the Value Added Tax (Special Provisions) Order 1995 opens the margin scheme to them. Belgium's FPS Finance names collectors' items too.
In the UK, with global accounting: total sales minus total purchases per VAT period, as long as no single item cost more than £500 (article 13 of the 1995 Order). A £140 collection that sold for £520 in the same period gives a £380 margin and £63.33 of VAT, one-sixth. In Belgium the margin is taken per return period by default: €65.95 at 21%.
No. In the UK an unfranked stamp that is still legal tender for postage is not a collector’s item by law (VAT Act 1994, section 21(6C)). In Belgium new goods are expressly on the exclusion list of FPS Finance. Stamps bought new to resell fall outside.
Stamps that mean nothing to a collector any more are no longer collector’s pieces under section 21(5) of the VAT Act 1994. In Belgium they fall under goods that can no longer be used in the same state, one of FPS Finance’s exclusions. Keep them separate in your register.
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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