Group buys and liability
Discussion
Something I was idly pondering: A car forum I use has had group buys of certain items for the marque, basically when someone organised it and got enough interested parties to stump up pre-payment. It's only been stuff like nuts and bolts to date and hasn't been anything at all for some time. I didn't get involved other than as a purchaser of things that were offered.
The last one fell flat and it was a remanufacture of a part I particularly wanted - a water hose that's an odd shape and the "New Old Stock" items available are getting rather more Old than New. I was thinking of bypassing all the collecting names and money in advance and just financing it myself then selling the remanufactured items on at cost, basically as a service to the community rather than as a way of making money. That train of thought has led me on to certain questions as I have no experience of manufacturing or buying stuff to sell on, just a car enthusiast.
Will I need a limited company, proper accounts etc to do this and calculate tax liability? The sums of money will not be large, maybe creeping into four figures (just about - basically it's a loss I can bear if they didn't all sell) and the idea is to cover the costs, not make a profit - I figure that as a perishable item I would be able to shift them all eventually if I stumped up my own money to get the thing started.
If one of these fails in normal use would I be liable? If I could be liable that presumably means some kind of product liability insurance with consequent increases in cost.
Rhetorical question - Am I just better off forgetting the whole idea as it's too complicated / risky?
Supplemental to all that is what if this were done as a "group buy" with one person (e.g. me) dealing with the company undertaking the remanufacture and collecting pre-payments and distribution of the finished item, how would that affect the tax and potential liability issues (if any)?
Ta to anyone that can help or point me in the right direction.
The last one fell flat and it was a remanufacture of a part I particularly wanted - a water hose that's an odd shape and the "New Old Stock" items available are getting rather more Old than New. I was thinking of bypassing all the collecting names and money in advance and just financing it myself then selling the remanufactured items on at cost, basically as a service to the community rather than as a way of making money. That train of thought has led me on to certain questions as I have no experience of manufacturing or buying stuff to sell on, just a car enthusiast.
Will I need a limited company, proper accounts etc to do this and calculate tax liability? The sums of money will not be large, maybe creeping into four figures (just about - basically it's a loss I can bear if they didn't all sell) and the idea is to cover the costs, not make a profit - I figure that as a perishable item I would be able to shift them all eventually if I stumped up my own money to get the thing started.
If one of these fails in normal use would I be liable? If I could be liable that presumably means some kind of product liability insurance with consequent increases in cost.
Rhetorical question - Am I just better off forgetting the whole idea as it's too complicated / risky?
Supplemental to all that is what if this were done as a "group buy" with one person (e.g. me) dealing with the company undertaking the remanufacture and collecting pre-payments and distribution of the finished item, how would that affect the tax and potential liability issues (if any)?
Ta to anyone that can help or point me in the right direction.
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