Changing VAT effective Registration Date - No answers or contact from HMRC

Hi there. I apologise for the lengthy post here but I have been given so many bits of incorrect information over the phone and passed on from one agent to another and I have no idea what to do now as I am getting no help from anyone I applied for my VAT number back at the start of March 2023 which took around 4 months to be issued. During this wait time I called the helpline a few times to check on the progress and on two of these occasions I specifically asked when I would have to start paying VAT from. My main question was that when my VAT number arrived would I have to backdate any VAT payments to my registration date or would payments begin from when I received my VAT number. I wanted to know if I should be putting money to one side so I wouldn’t have to pay an unexpected bill. I was told on both occasions that I would not have to backdate any payments as without a VAT number I couldn’t charge VAT and in turn would not have any payments to make. Payments would only start once my VAT number is approved. My VAT number came through the post on the first week of August and stated that I would need to pay back VAT to the effective registration date of the 1st May 2023. Obviously this was the opposite of the advice I was given over the phone and would likely mean I couldn’t pay the VAT bill and may have to stop trading, or, spread that first payment over a year or two. I called up the VAT helpline again once this letter arrived and explained to a lady everything above and what had happened. She put in some requests on her end to change my effective registration date to the 1st August when I received the VAT number and said that once it had been looked over someone would be in touch and I should start charging VAT from that date. The middle of August I once again called the helpline as I had received no communications or confirmation of anything only to be informed that they cannot put in these requests over the helpline and I have to get in touch directly through the email address vrs.newregistrations@hmrc.gov.uk. So, this is what I did, I received no reply and sent another message asking just for confirmation that hey had received my request, still almost 40 days later I have heard nothing. The last gentleman I spoke to on the phone told me that I should not to submit any returns until this process is completed, and that seeing as I have emailed to change the dfate that they will not issue any late payments or fines. After reading some posts on this forum it seems like people still get sent late payment fines despite not hearing anything back. The deadline for my first submission (if the ERD is not changed) is coming up in 10 days, and now I am getting very paranoid that I’ll be hit with fines as I have not written proof that they have evn received my emails. What do I do. No phone number is helpful and every agent gives wrong/different advice

Hi,

We are sorry to hear you are having issues with this. Can you please contact the effective date of registration team on 0300 322 7879 to get an update on this.

Thank you.