I had a bit of an embarrassing situation recently which reminded me about the importance of double checking basic VAT information. I was at a meeting with an accountant and we were discussing various problems he had discovered at a new clients in advance of a VAT inspection. We got on to the subject of bad debt relief and I had a complete mental block about the removal of the requirement for suppliers to notify debtors that they would be claiming bad debt relief. The rule changed, of course, for supplies made after 31 December 2002, as explained in VAT Notice 700/18.
I had a similar situation a few weeks ago when someone asked about the threshold for issuing less detailed tax points. I had a quick look in VAT Notice 700 where it said that the limit was £100. Now at the time I had a nagging memory that the limit had been raised to £250 in recent years, but because I was in a hurry (and aren’t we always?) I didn’t double check the point and had very red cheeks when an accountant pointed out my error.
When I was in the profession, it was always easy to double check technical points, whether they were “every day” issues or more complex issues. There were always tons of text books around, access to online technical guidance and of course a wealth of colleagues with the accumulated knowledge of several centuries of experience.
Its a basic requirement of any specialist, whatever your field, that you know or have access to up to date basic technical information and I get so mad with myself when I have to go back to a client to confirm basic stuff. Because sometimes it’s easier to remember detailed technical facts about a complex issue such as the option to tax than the basic stuff which I’ve known for years!
It’s also very frustrating that we can’t always rely on the HMRC public notices to be up to date, although their internal manuals are usually more reliable. So now I’m self-employed, I have to make a point of being my own worst critic and investing in up to date text books and online technical libraries so that I have plenty of resources to double and triple check any advice I give. Just goes to show that however long you have worked in your profession, trade etc, we need to keep on learning and relearning to stay at the top of our game.
Marie