Jay Cooke

Your other post on this customer forum is asking HMRC how to convert from a NETP VAT registration to a UK established VAT registration, but here you are saying you are no longer running a business and want to deregister for VAT. You cannot be registered for VAT if you are not trading or intending to trade, so your query about de-registration seems more of relevance than asking about changing your VAT status. Whether you are a UK established or non-UK established business, you should still be able to deregister for VAT if the conditions are met. You do not state what legal form your VAT registration was originally made in, are you a sole trader or a Ltd company. If all of your VAT returns are up-to-date and filed on time and there is no outstanding VAT liabilities or penalties, then you should be able to deregister via your government gateway. If HMRC are rejecting your request to de-register it is possible that HMRC have information that indicates that you are still trading, or that you have outstanding liabilities from a long time ago. You'll need to call the VAT general helpline (or use the webchat facility although it is not always open for queries but is usually available sometime during each day), link here https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/hm-revenue-customs/contact/vat-enquiries

Your gateway/login relates to your old (2019) VAT number, that gateway will remain active for many years as it is a historical record of your VAT returns from 2019 to 2021. So when you are looking at the VAT certificate, it is for your old (2019) VAT number, it is invalid as you are deregistered, again, it exists on the gateway for accounting/record keeping purposes. If you re-registered for VAT in 2024, you will be given a new VAT number, you will never be given your old VAT number back, once de-registered those VAT numbers are no longer used for a while to remove risk of confusion/duplication. If you have re-registered and not got any paperwork then you need to call HMRC helpline and ask them to re-send those details to you, because you will have a new VAT number and once you know your new VAT number you can then either i) create a brand new government gateway and add your new VAT number to that, or ii) you can call the VAT IT Helpdesk and ask them to remove the old VAT number from your current gateway and add your new VAT number....but you can only do this if you know what your new VAT number is. If you have registered for VAT in 2024, you are liable for charging and collecting VAT from the date you specify on the VAT registration form, so you need to act fast as if you are VAT registered now but HMRC's letters got lost in the post, you may have a large VAT liability due to HMRC as your VAT registration is from the date on your application, not when HMRC approve or write to you with a VAT certificate.

The 5% (reduced rate) applies only applies to supply AND install, so if you are buying just materials from a builders merchant, they are rightly charging 20% VAT, whereas if you have a contractor/builder by the materials and then install them, the builder will charge 5% VAT on both the material costs and their labour costs. For example, you buy bricks and engage a builder to build a wall, the bricks will be at 20% because you are buying just goods, the builders labour at 5% because they are supplying install services, if you have the builder buy the bricks and build the wall, whole supply is at 5%....but yes, builder will add a mark-up on the materials so discuss with them in advance an agreeable markup for materials, bearing in mind they can probably get a large discount if they have an account with the builders merchant/store. If you are mainly using non-VAT registered builders then there is no benefit to be had from the reduced rate as the builder will not be charging any VAT to you, so you are stuck with buying materials only at 20%. There is a DIY scheme available to reclaim VAT on material only purchases, but this only applies where the property has not been lived in for more than 10 years. You mention the property has not been lived in for 5 years and so would not qualify.

The right to reclaim VAT is always on the basis that the cost incurred is i) used by the business and ii) and used in making taxable supplies. There does not appear to be a direct link between the cost of education of a child of an employee/Director and the business making taxable sales (ie, IT business offering web design services, charges VAT to its business customers, what is the direct link between those web design services and the school fees of a child of an employee or Director?) The business might argue that in order to retain quality Directors, the company has to offer child fees as part of its renumeration package (akin to a job offer that incudes a company car). This argument has less viability for a business with a sole Director/owner or small business (as suggested by your reference to FRS105) as the owner of the business is unlikely to demand a remuneration package from their own company or else they will leave. Assuming the argument for recruiting of employee/Directors is met, if fees are paid via salary sacrifice (ie, employer engages with the school), the company could reclaim the input tax from the school but would have to declare output tax on salary forgone to the employee, so employee would still end up with a VAT liability. If the Directors pay for it and puts an expense claim in to reclaim costs, this is likely to be seen as private use of company funds and the company cannot reclaim input tax as the benefit is personal for the Director. In the alternative the company could argue this is a perk like gym membership but the Supply of Services order provides that companies that make available any services supplied to them for private use or use other than wholly business by any person must declare output tax on the value of that private use and you're back to the company charging VAT. In short, the ability to reclaim input tax on school fees is highly risky, untested and will likely be challenged by HMRC as laws exist to prevent companies paying for the private use/benefit of Directors or employees already. A Director/shareholder has a fiduciary duty to ensure the company complies with all tax and corporate laws and remember that you are not the same as the company, the company is a separate legal person to the owner of the business, the company is not an extension of the individual person/owner, this is why a company has its own bank account and has to account for expenditure made to or from its owners (Directors Loan Account).

If your business is 99% exempt then it would be highly unlikely that the car is used 100% of the time for just 1% of the business income, more realistically, and as you are a Director, the car will be used for both exempt and taxable sales and therefore would fall to be residual input tax. So you would allocate the 50% recoverable VAT for lease cars into your "residual" pot of input tax and then perform a partial exemption calculation which would in effect see you only being able to reclaim 1% of the "residual" input tax, in other words, you'd only be able to reclaim 1% of the 50%...unless the business is de minimis and de minimis status is only confirmed by performing a partial exemption calculation and subsequent annual adjustment.. That you ask a question about whether you can reclaim 50% input tax on car lease suggests the business is not aware of partial exemption, which is mandatory for a business that makes exempt supplies. If the business is aware of partial exemption and the requirement to restrict input tax on its expenditure, then you may need to speak to the finance person at the company who prepares the VAT returns and performs the partial exemption adjustments as they are more likely to know the exact % of VAT that can be reclaimed on the lease car.

I've not encountered any issues with the online registration in the last few weeks, I am based in England though. Have you tried using a different browser (Chrome/Edge) or clearing your cookies as that generally fixes this issue, I don't beleve it would be an entire outage across the whole of Northern Ireland and more likely a localised issue, meaning your computer/software. As a test, try and access the online registration via your smartphone, if it works on the phone then it proves the website work and must be your computer, if it doesn't work on your phone, then try turning off your phone wifi and try and access the website using your phone data (rather than wifi) and if you can access the online registration then maybe there is a block on your internet/broadband (maybe an aggressive spam/web anti virus)? Other than that, you're stuck with just calling the online IT helpdesk and maybe they can take you through some tests. Oh, and always worth noting that at the bottom of the page that shows the error "Sorry the system...." at the very bottom should be a link "Page not working? Click here", so click on that and you can send a report to the IT desk and these queries are usually dealt with much better than through the helpline.

Can you not just change the details via the government gateway. If you are VAT registered and filing VAT returns, then you will have a government gateway, log into that and amend the address there. If the address has been changed at Companies House then you will also need to contact Companies House first to have the address changed. If you haven't got access to the government gateway then it may be easier to restore your access to that by calling the VAT IT Helpdesk using link below. https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/hm-revenue-customs/contact/vat-online-services-helpdesk

All of the above list are reverse charge, except for the taxi rides/transport.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/check-if-you-need-to-report-errors-in-your-vat-return Client can submit a VAT652 voluntary disclosure of error, which can include the value of any VAT due to HMRC or VAT refund due from HMRC. Can be filed online if client still has access to their government gateway, else can be filed by online without a gateway.

Place of supply of goods is where they are at time of sale. The goods (the art) are in the UK at time the sale takes place at the exhibition. So this suggests that you own goods in the UK and at the time you sell those goods, tey (the goods) are in the UK. The VAT registration threshold is £90,000 but only for UK resident seller (a UK based Ltd or a UK based sole trader), but for a non-UK seller, the VAT threshold is Nil. This is the exact same for a UK artist selling at a one-off event in the EU, the place of supply would be in the EU, the seller would not be EU resident and the various EU VAT thresholds are irrelevant, the non-EU resident registers from their first sale, regardless of value. So the gallery are correct to suggest a UK VAT registration is required. If this was a one-off sale of art then once you declare your sale to HMRC on your first VAT return, you could then choose to de-register for VAT as you'd no longer be making anymore sales in the UK, or you might want to attend other UK exhibitions and auctions and so it might be worth keeping your VAT registration and you would file a Nil VAT return each quarter....or you could de-register for VAT once your sale has finished and then you can always re-register for VAT in the future if you have another event to attend in the UK. If the gallery insist on a VAT number before you can show your art then you are bound by the terms set by the gallery, in an ideal world it would be better to only register for VAT once the art has sold, but then the gallery might be of the view that they then would have to wait for your to apply and get a VAT number after the sale, this might take 2-3 weeks to be processed by HMRC and the gallery may not want to have to check in on you and check your VAT status after the sale, again, if the gallery demands VAT registration before art can be shown then that is between you and the gallery.