Hallo, i was looking at the Auction Items on the the-saleroom.com and i must say, even though i took time trying to understand the Buyers Terms, i am not sure if my calculations are correct. An example taken from an Auction: 1.Buyer’s premium of 23% on the hammer price plus VAT at 20% is payable on all lots. Lots purchased via www.the-saleroom.com, www.liveauctioneers.com and www.invaluable.com will incur an additional 5% charge plus VAT at 20%. (The VAT rate may alter and will be levied at the appropriate rate.) Lets say i place a bid of 1000,-GBP and win the auction (=> hammer price = 1000,- GBP) So if i understand correctly, there are following costs that will add to that price: 1) 23% Buyer' premium on the hammer price 2) 20% VAT 3) 5% charge plus VAT at 20% 3.1) 5% charge on hammer price or on the total price? 3.2) ..plus VAT at 20% - once again? or can one ignore this line of text? Therefore we have a following calculation: 1000 + 230 + 200 + 50 = 1480,- GBP Is this a correct calculation or am i missing something? Thank you!
No. The VAT is on the additional charges. Hammer price = £1,000 Buyer premium= £ 230 VAT on above = £ 246 Outside charge =£ 50 VAT on above =£ 10 Total cost = Ridiculous. gatorcpa
It depends. Some goods sold at auction (new goods) are liable for VAT on the sale price, most are not
Agree with above - vat is only charged on the fees unless its a new item and generally then it is marked as 43% ish in the fees section to show this or in the item description that vat will be charged on the hammer price too. I buy a lot on the saleroom (furniture etc for my shop) and generally work to it being 25% on top of hammer price and that is always about right. Of course this depends on the auction houses fees - most 'antique' auctions tend to be sub 20% but some are over and then it's more like 30% to add on. Those are pretty realistic quick ways of calculating though.
If you aren't in EU, then will not have VAT. But don't forget whatever import fees you will pay on it at its fully declared value for your respective country. Unless I've been misinformed this whole time.
Just thinking about this again as I was driving along... If you look at an individual item on the saleroom below where you can put in a bid it says 'additional fees apply' click on that and it tells you the total amount inc vat and fees you will pay on top (as a percentage obviously). I'm driving to view an auction right now and as an example the first lot is listed with an estimate of £30 - £50 and when clicking on the fees button it tells me they will charge 27% in total on top of whatever the hammer price is. Much easier than making sense of the T&C's...and again I suppose if you work to 30% it will always be a little cheaper than you were expecting which is always nice!
It says the following: If this is the "only" % they will charge, than it makes it easy to calculate. i was kind of confused by the link to "read the auctioneer's T&Cs", since it states this: 1.Buyer’s premium of 23% on the hammer price plus VAT at 20% is payable on all lots. Lots purchased via www.the-saleroom.com, www.liveauctioneers.com and www.invaluable.com will incur an additional 5% charge plus VAT at 20%. (The VAT rate may alter and will be levied at the appropriate rate.) so i wasnt sure how do i come up to 33,60% from the information given above: Thank you all, very much for clarification! even though i am even more confused now, which calculation would be the correct one
Yep the 33.6% will be the total fee 'all in' they will charge you on top of the hammer price. As I've said I use it on a weekly basis and that is always how it works out so thankfully they make it quite simple to calculate (even though I still just do a rough guesstimate in my head each time & it's always close enough!)
perfect! thanks! i just wanted to make sure i understand it. since in this example, on a 1000 GBP purchase, there is a difference of like 200,-GBP, which is not little.
That £200 difference between columns A&B in your chart is the exact difference between VAT being charged on the hammer price, and VAT on the Buyers premium only.
For most of the auctions I do it generally works out at about 25% on the saleroom (local antique/furniture auctions). I'd be paying about 20% if I went in person and to be honest I'd rather pay an extra 5% to not have to stand in a cold room for 6hrs bidding! Sitting at home with a coffee on the laptop is definitely preferable! But yep some of the fees on the national auctions are pretty mega. Easyliveauction offer an interesting alternative where you pay £3 upfront and they don't charge a per item fee on top of the auctioneers fee - their site is pretty glitchy though. Even though these sites have pushed the prices up a fair bit as I go to about 8 auctions a month they save me a huge amount of time!