Question:
When should I register our LEAP Company?
Answer:
As soon as possible. You are not insured to trade until your company is registered with LEAP. You have until the end of November to pay the £150 registration fee. If your payment is made by the end of October you will receive a 100% discount on the fee for the December Trade Fair. It is possible to register your Company and to change the Trading Name, add personnel and a logo at a later date.
Question:
What is the maximum amount I can raise by selling shares?
Answer:
Please see page 27 of the Start-up book that is available in Resources. Only registered companies can download Resources.
Shares are sold at £1.00 each. Normally we restrict the amount of capital that can be raised by shares to £400.00, but if needed you can raise more this will require the permission of your Teacher, Business Mentor and the agreement of Board member from LEAP.
Question:
How do I open a bank account?
Answer:
You will find instructions on how to open the bank account on page 17 in the Start-up Guide. The Start-up guide is available to download from Resources once you are a registered LEAP company.
Question:
Can we be exempt from VAT if all our profits are going to our nominated charity?
Answer:
We note your request for exemption from LEAP-VAT and although we are sympathetic there are reasons why the answer is unfortunately NO.
We charge VAT mainly as a learning exercise since all businesses have to pay VAT and the VAT man is the most powerful government agency around, able to fine, requisition equipment and even close down a business.
Many LEAP companies give their profits to charity and if we exempt one then we have to do it for everyone. The VAT paid to LEAP covers some of our costs for seminars and competitions.
Please note:
If you have shareholders you are unable to state that all your profits will go to a charity since to do this will jeopardize our charitable status. You can say that subject to shareholders approval it is planned to donate profits to charity.
Question:
We are selling children's clothes that do not have VAT on them - do we have to pay LEAP-VAT?
Answer:
To keep life simple we assume that all purchases have VAT included and therefore all Sales must include LEAP-VAT.
This is not as bad as it at first appears. At the end of the year all VAT from your purchases will be subtracted from the VAT owed on your sales. Do not worry about this calculation it is done automatically through the accounting programme you will be using.
