Jay Cooke

You can't rely on HMRC giving you advice when the answer is "it depends on the contractual nature of the supply you make". You are either acting as an (agent )on behalf of the talent or you are buying in the services of the talent and selling it on under your own name (principal), I would have thought the clue was in your description "small actors agency", an agent brings a seller and a buyer together, like eBay does, an agent doesn't sell anything other than their finders fee, again, like eBay. Most talent agencies operate as an agent, not as a principal, but it does depend on what the contracts says, the contract between you and the talent and the contract between you and the studio/production company. As an agent, you would typically charge a commission or fee to either the talent, the studio or both, the commission is your turnover for VAT registration purposes, the money that passes through you that belongs to the talent is nothing to do with you other than it comes through you so that you can i) ensure the talent fee is correct and ii) you can calculate your commission correctly. "On the other hand, people are saying...." you cannot rely upon the internet or man in the pub to ensure your business is compliant, you've already potentially registered for VAT in error, you have a fiduciary duty to get things right and DIY tax advice only works on simple stuff. In your post you refer to "the actor would have invoiced the Agency £900 i.e. £1000 minus 10% commission of £100. Simple! The Agency never raised invoices to the Client (actor) it was always the actor invoicing us." but there are some issues here too, the Actors fee is £1,000 so why are they raising an invoice for £900? The actor bills you £1,000 (this is your cost/expense), you then invoice the actor for your fee of £100 (this is your sale), but what you are describing is the actor is already deducting your fee from their fee but this is wrong, the actor is now under declaring their sales on their own tax return. The actor cannot net off your fee against their fee, that is not how accounts work, if I want to charge you £1,000 but you also want to charge me £500 we don't just both agree to invoice each £500 because my fee is £1,000 (income) and your fee is £500 (expenditure) and the net might well be £500 but you can't net off one from the other. Based on the "old" method you describe above, it appears that you are indeed acting as a principal, you are buying in the services of the actor and then reselling those services, whereas the first part of your post you describe what appears to be an agent relationship where you are just the middleman between an actor and a studio. Once you decide which business model you want to operate under, then get your contracts to reflect that business model and then you may be able to deregister for VAT. It'll be impossible for HMRC to answer this when you don;t know whether you are an agent or a principal, I think you want (and need) to be an agent, link below to HMRC guidance to help you with the concept that is "agent". https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/vat-taxable-person/vtaxper36580

The "this supply subject to reverse charge, customer to account for VAT" requirement is an EU VAT rule, there is no requirement for an EU or rest of the world supplier to put any wording on their invoices to non-EU customers. You should know already that if you are a business and buy (most) services from outside the UK, the supplier will not charge VAT (place of supply is where customer is, supplier treats as outside scope of VAT) and your purchase is subject to reverse charge by default and so you would be expected to reverse charge any such service invoices by default. Some EU suppliers may retain the special wording as a template on all their invoices regardless of where the invoice is going to but to answer your question, there is no legal requirement to add the special wording where the customer/recipient is not an EU based business. There is also no requirement for a UK supplier to issue an invoice with any special wording to any EU or rest of world business customer, but the wording is helpful as it tells the recipient they have to do something, so whether there is a legal requirement or not, I tend to advise my clients to put some form of reminder/wording on the invoice so as to help their customer, purely as a convenience for the customer (and it also helps during a HMRC inspection as HMRC may ask why certain sales are not subject to VAT and some sort of wording will at least explain to HMRC why).

If you register from 01 Jan 2025, and you do this in April 2025, then select "April" quarters when registering for VAT and then you should get a 4 month quarter for your first return and then will go back to 3 month quarters thereafter.

You can only reclaim UK charged VAT by a UK registered supplier, so you cannot reclaim this 12% tax. If the goods have been shipped from Philippines to UK then the invoice should be zero rated/no VAT from the supplier and then you pay import VAT when the goods enter the UK. You should go back to the supplier an ask why they have charged VAT because it sounds like they've done it wrong. But to reiterate, you can never reclaim foreign VAT on a UK VAT return. Remember how VAT is meant to work, UK supplier charges UK to business customer VAT and UK supplier pays this VAT over to HMRC, UK business customer reclaims this VAT from HMRC, so the VAT goes in and out of HMRC/VAT neutral....if you reclaim 12% VAT, HMRC do not have the corresponding 12% paid to them from the supplier in the Philippines and so you'd be reclaiming VAT that is not counter balanced by a payment from the supplier, HMRC is losing out, loss to the revenue and you'll get a penalty if HMRC discover that you've been reclaiming foreign VAT.

The UK company imports goods into the UK, so this must mean the UK company is the owner of these goods when they enter the UK. The UK company then "sells" these goods to USA company, as the goods have not left the UK at this point then UK company is making a UK sale of goods and those sales count towards VAT threshold, UK company probably needs to register for VAT. You make reference to UK company being a middleman, but that means nothing in this transaction, UK company is either an agent or a principal and as UK company is the importer of the goods, then UK company is principal when it sells the goods to USA, so UK company is buying in goods and selling them on to USA even though the goods don't physically move from the UK warehouse the ownership does (UK sells to USA whilst goods remain in UK). USA company will also need to register for VAT because USA company owns goods physically in the UK and makes sales in the UK, USA company is not UK resident/not UK based, VAT threshold for USA company is Nil, USA company must register from the very first sale it makes. Amazon will likely not allow the USA company to sell on their platform without a VAT registration. You should probably seek advice from an Accountant because that setup is not super efficient but does work, you could perhaps look at UK company being a pure agent charging a commission and the USA company being the importer of the goods but that would mean USA company would see the original price charged by the overseas supplier and I'm guessing the UK doesn't want the USA to see how much UK is importing the goods for and how much UK is marking up the goods. There are other ways to structure the transactions to be more efficient but this forum does not give such advice.

The exemption that allows a charity to have a sellers/landlord option to tax disapplied relies on the fact the charity intends to occupy the premises for an entirely non-business purpose and cannot use the property as a head office, so that is a very narrow definition and is aimed at charities almost wholly funded by grants and donations with no other business related income such as a charity shop selling donated goods or a charity that charges customers in their charity cafe or charges customers to access services, advice, etc. HMRC have supplied the link to the definitions that are in play here, so do read that guidance as it clearly states the rules. Assuming you meet these conditions for exemption, the landlord/seller should disapply their option to tax, however, many are reluctant to do so because this costs them money, a taxable property suddenly becoming an exempt property means the landlord or seller may have to repay previously reclaimed input tax in the last 10 years (Capital Goods Scheme) or in the last year (Partial exemption) and so they will resist your attempts to make their taxable supply exempt...at the very least they may want to revise their rental/selling price to reflect any loss they may incur if they have to repay previously reclaimed input tax. Who told you "you can reclaim this VAT back from HMRC?" Assuming the charity is not VAT registered (unlikely if it meets the conditions to remove the VAT from a property purchase and you have stated in your question above that you are not VAT registered), it is the vendor/seller who has to remove the VAT from the selling price, it is not the case that the vendor charges VAT and you reclaim it later. HMRC will reject any attempt to reclaim VAT, HMRC's logic will be that if the exemption applied, the landlord should have applied it, you cannot reclaim VAT where it has been wrongly charged by the supplier. Who told you to "setup a NewCo"? This is potentially terrible advice, the NewCo could acquire the property, the NewCo could opt to tax the property but then it would have to charge a market rent to the charity and that rent would be plus VAT. This may work if the value of the property is less than £250k and could see the initial input tax recovery from the purchase but also means the NewCo is charging market rent to the charity, that might be okay if that is the intention but it does mean that VAT is still charged to the tenant. But if the property being purchased is more than £250k then there is specific anti-avoidance legislation which will remove the NewCo's option to tax and in doing so, this will mean NewCo cannot make taxable supplies of rent to the charity and the NewCo is denied input tax recovery on the property purchase. If the "advice" you are getting is free, then suggest you pay for specific advice, speak to an Accountant or tax specialist, as a charity your funds are precious and there is a cost to ensure good governance, if I were a trustee of the charity and taking advice from the internet on what is potentially an expensive property purchase with real life tax consequences, as a Trustee it would be a failure of their duty to just assume they can reclaim the VAT, VAT is complicated and a charity cannot afford to make a mistake that could see it having to lose/repay to HMRC £x amount of VAT. What is the value of the property being purchased, that is a good starting point.

Place of supply of services (VAT Notice 741A)B2C supplies The general rule for B2C supplies of services is that the place of supply is where the supplier belongs, irrespective of the location of their customer. 6.3 B2B supplies The B2B general rule for supplies of services is that the supply is made where the customer belongs. As you are attending a wedding, this would suggest your customer is a consumer (B2C) and not a business customer (B2B), therefore the B2C rules (6.2) would apply, place of supply of your services is where you are based, all subject to VAT. Another example here in HMRC's internal manuals - VATPOSS06400 - General rule: Supplies to non-business customers (B2C)

Place of supply of services is normally based where the customer is (Ireland/reverse charge), except where the "use & enjoyment" rules are in play, in that scenario, the place of supply is where the services are used & enjoyed and you are stating the services are used & enjoyed in UK and so the supplier is correct, the supplier has to charge UK VAT. HMRC Notice 741A, section 13. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/vat-place-of-supply-of-services-notice-741a#sec13 The supplier could invoice the UK business, but when the UK business recharges this back to Ireland then you are still caught by the same rules, the UK company is making a supply to Ireland of services but those services are clearly used & enjoyed only in the UK, so UK VAT would still apply. Recharges are probably not the best way to go, can't the UK entity just incur the costs of this service on it's own, unless that interferes with any kind of cost+ tax planning you have in place.

When you call the IT VAT Helpdesk they will ask more than one security question in order to identify who you are and that you are a genuine person who is the owner of the VAT registered business. So it you called HMRC and they only asked one question, that doesn't sound like the normal procedure. There is no other way to reset a gateway password other than to call HMRC and pass the security tests, the security questions are more than just an email address, a genuine business owner should know details about their business such as when it was incorporated, it's business address, it's date of registration, it's last VAT return period that was filed, etc. You cannot create a new gateway, your VAT number can only be attached to ONE gateway, you already have a gateway, it would be chaos if you were able to have multiple gateways all using the same VAT number (open to fraud). Ensure you are calling the correct helpline (IT helpdesk, not the general VAT helpline) and I reiterate that you cannot reset your gateway without calling HMRC and going through the security checks. - https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/hm-revenue-customs/contact/online-services-helpdesk

You can either call HMRC and request any credit to be refunded back to your business bank account, or you can leave the credit sitting on your VAT account and when filing your next VAT return, whatever your liability is will be taken from the credit. Always best to file VAT returns when they are due and not wait for central assessments as it just means more work for you in having to call or write to HMRC to fix things.