i think you are missing the basic point john.
every quarter you sell a number of things as a tradesman,
either your time, or finished jobs. you have a total amount of vat
that you have charged for that work.
during that quarter you have bought materials, and maybe tools.
you were charged vat on most or all of those. if they are "applicable"
then you can offset your costs "input", against your sales "output",
and the bit in the middle is what you send to the vatman.
:twisted:
later in its life you may sell a second hand machine, and technically
someof that price should include vat,but not sure how many people
actually charge it on individual machines, cause you generally sell
more than one thing at a time.
hopefully this has not muddied the water's any more, but
the fact is you only offset vat, you never actually reclaim it.
very clever management bulls**t from the civil service
mandarins.
paul :wink: