Vintro Pro
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Vintro Pro
NL · FR · EN
The same candlestick, two VAT treatments. What decides is not the metal, but what you are selling.
A silver object falls under the margin; silver by weight does not.
Silverware falls under the margin scheme as long as you sell it as an object. Precious metals are excluded, in the UK as in Belgium.
Silverware is the textbook case of a type where the precious-metals exclusion cuts straight through a single transaction. A silver candlestick is second-hand goods. The same silver by the gram is precious metal.
In the UK, article 2 of the Value Added Tax (Special Provisions) Order 1995 defines second-hand goods as tangible movable property “other than precious metals and precious stones”, and gov.uk lists precious metals among the goods you cannot use a margin scheme for. Belgium’s FPS Finance excludes precious metals, precious stones and pearls. That is a rule, not a nuance.
Sell a dish, a candlestick or a canteen of cutlery to someone who will use or display it, and you are selling tangible movable property being used again. That is second-hand goods.
Antique silverware may additionally count as antiques — more than 100 years old, under article 2 of the 1995 Order — or as collectors’ items. Article 12(2) names both separately, with the same treatment.
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 silver candlestick: bought for €190.00, sold for €470.00. 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 280 is 56.00, while in the UK you owe one-sixth, 46.67 — the 16.67% gov.uk quotes. At Belgium’s 21%, the same mistake turns €48.60 into €58.80. 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?
Sell the same piece by weight to a refiner and you sell precious metal, and the margin scheme is not in play. The exclusion looks at what you trade, not at who you are.
Objects damaged beyond use as objects are no longer suitable for further use as they are or after repair, which article 2 asks of second-hand goods; Belgium names goods out of use on its exclusion list. That is exactly the case where selling by weight is the obvious route — and then the precious-metals exclusion applies anyway.
In the UK, whether silverware 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 silverware, 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 gov.uk excludes them from the margin schemes by name.
In the UK each margin item goes individually into the stockbook (gov.uk, VAT margin schemes); silver sold by weight does not belong there. In this trade that is the heart of it.
Plated metal is not precious metal. The distinction decides whether the exclusion bites, so it belongs in your register.
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 an object, yes. A silver candlestick or dish resold as an object is tangible movable property suitable for further use, which is second-hand goods under article 2 of the Value Added Tax (Special Provisions) Order 1995. But the same article leaves precious metals out, so silver traded by weight falls outside, in the UK as in Belgium.
What you sell. An object that is used or displayed is second-hand goods. Metal by the gram is precious metal, which gov.uk lists among the goods you cannot use a margin scheme for; Belgium names it alongside precious stones and pearls.
Plated metal is not precious metal. The object then stays ordinary second-hand goods. The distinction between solid and plated therefore belongs in your purchase register.
In the UK, at 20%, the VAT is one-sixth of the margin: €280 ÷ 6 = €46.67 (in pounds the sum works the same way). In Belgium, at 21%, €48.60 (€280 × 21/121).
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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