Jay Cooke

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.

Presumably your eBay account is setup in another Country, so when you made a sale in the UK, eBay will have seen that you are a foreign/overseas seller seller goods to UK consumers and VAT applies to such sales. Generally eBay are liable to account for VAT on sales to UK consumers when the sale is made by a non-UK resident trader. You can't get the VAT back from HMRC as you are not UK VAT registered, you should contact eBay and explain the situation and they may be able to assist, whether eBay are correct to have charged VAT will depend on the type of eBay account you have, the value of what was sold and the location of the goods at time of sale. Link to the guidance below, worth reading all of the guide and then if not applicable to you, take it up with eBay, it's not for HMRC to resolve if eBay have charged VAT incorrectly, eBay need to correct their error if applicable. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/vat-and-overseas-goods-sold-to-customers-in-the-uk-using-online-marketplaces

You raise VAT only invoices to your customers. If your customers are consumers (the public, rather than a corporate customer), then the chances of them paying are slim, depending upon the T&C's related to your sales. If the customer is a corporate customer, then they are likely to have no issue paying the VAT only invoice. If you cannot get the VAT only invoices paid by your clients then the VAT is paid for out of your income, for example, if you had invoiced customer for £100 no VAT, and assuming client refuses to pay the VAT only invoice of £20, then the £100 is deemed VAT inclusive thus £100 x 1 /6 = £16.66 VAT paid to HMRC and your turnover is reduced to £83.34

Having had the exact same issue - as a tax agent acting for clients - , I can confirm that there is a known glitch, HMRC systems do not always pull the information from Companies House. I can also confirm that you cannot change the company name via your government gateway as the gateway ONLY takes the name change from Companies House and if that automated pull through of name change isn't happening because of a database issue, then you cannot change the name via the gateway. You can't change it using VAT484 form either as this form has been withdrawn from the HMRC website and you can call and ask for a form to be posted to you but that will be slower than the proposed solution. My only solution was to call the General VAT helpline, I spoke to someone who had actually heard of this error before and she kindly put my name change request through to a specialist team, that change was then made manually by this specialist team, you can't contact them directly, but the General VAT helpline should be aware of the issue and be able to escalate the matter. The helpline staff cannot do the change for you, they can only pass your request to the specialist team. Make sure the VAT helpline gives you a customer reference number so that you can chase this up if not resolved within 2 weeks. Be warned, after the name was changed on the VAT registration/gateway, the manual changes made by the specialist team did not extend to EORI number, so if you have an EORI number then you will need to email the EORI team separate and ask them to amend the EORI number to reflect your new Partnership name, https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/hm-revenue-customs/contact/vat-enquiries