Charlie

Hi there - I'm a sole trader based in the UK, whose turnover is far below the £85k threshold, so I am not registered for VAT. Am I right in understanding correctly that, because I am not VAT registered myself, I am *not permitted* to charge VAT on sales to customers in the UK? Only I recently set up an Etsy shop selling digital products, and all of my listings say "VAT included" and are marked up by 20%, even when viewed from the UK by UK customers. This seems to be a persistent glitch on Etsy, reported by others in these community forum threads, which unfortunately also state that Etsy Support has been profoundly unhelpful in addressing this issue:  I just want to be sure I'm understanding correctly that this should *not* be the case, because I find this rather upsetting - not only because the 20% markup makes people less likely to buy my products but also because I don't want to be complicit in charging my customers illegal tax!

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Hi there - I am a writer and freelance social media assistant. One of the clients I do freelance work for is based in the US, but she pays me directly and I pay no US tax on it. I've been trying to determine whether this counts as 'foreign income' or not. I've read several other similar forum posts on here but simply ended up more unsure; some answers seemed to suggest that yes, it does count as foreign income, but unless I paid US taxes on it and am wanting to claim back tax relief, then I don't need to complete the foreign income section of my return? Is that correct? Similarly: I also wrote a book, which has been published with different publishers in the US and the UK. I received an advance payment from my US publisher, but it was paid to me *via* my UK-based literary agent. I have the same questions here: Does this count as 'foreign income'? And do I need to fill out the foreign income section of the return? Thank you  

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