VAT Blog

Property developers: can you claim VAT?  Whenever I’m contacted by a property developer, one of the first questions they ask is, almost without exception, “can I claim my VAT back”. As most of you know already, there is no simple answer to this question, as it depends...

Does the VAT registration limit deter small business growth? As far as the government is concerned, in an ideal world, everyone would declare all of their income and pay all of their taxes at the right time. Every business that should be registered for VAT would be...

I know that a lot of people are nervous about contacting professional advisors because of the cost. You know that you’ll be charged by the hour, but you don’t know how many hours it’s going to take nor when the clock starts ticking. You’re happy to pay for advice in...

HMRC and the 12 year old VAT debt: Every now and again, somebody ends up having to pay HMRC a lot of money which could easily have been prevented, because they've made one very simple mistake ...... HMRC and the 12 year old VAT debt.  In one recent case, a company...

I've seen a number of queries on various business forums over the years about the VAT reverse charge procedure. Either way, it seems to cause a lot of confusion so I thought I'd try "demystifying the reverse charge", to explain WHY and HOW the procedure works, to help...

Recently I blogged about the importance of referring to up to date VAT notices, following the issue of an updated VAT Notice 708: Buildings and Construction. This past week, HMRC issued updated explanatory notes to the VAT Refund Scheme claim forms; VAT 431NB for new...

I often receive queries from private individuals about VAT, customs duty and personal imports. The information is available on HMRC's websites, but like everything tax related, you have to know where to look and even if you find the right information, it's still...

Well I ended last week discussing a political issue, so I thought I'd start this week discussing another political issue. And the amazing result for UKIP in the European elections has certainly given us all food for thought. It might, of course, be a "mid-term protest...

I know it's not normal for professionals to talk about politics - one of the three great taboo subjects including religion and sex. And this blog isn't really about VAT, but because I wanted to have my say about the Scottish independence issue. Since the union of the...

VAT, intercompany charges and management charges: I was looking at my Google Analytics statistics today to see who's been visiting the website and which pages over the past month. There was quite a lot of traffic to the pages about my ebook "VAT and residential...

Apparently, you've a much better chance of remembering something if you write it down. Preferably by hand, because there's something about the link between the action of the hand and the brain that helps imprint what you've written down into your memory. I'm not sure...

When you're looking for residential property to develop, you spend a long time scouring local estate agents for that perfect property. I'm also guessing that some people will find old commercial properties that are just ripe for conversion and will be doing those...

When should property developers start thinking about VAT? One thing I've learnt from property developers is that property development is a very complicated business. Even experienced developers have to run a very tight ship to balance the many financial demands,...