Jay Cooke

Have you told Uber that you are VAT registered and given Uber your VAT number? If you haven't, then Uber will not know that you are VAT registered so they will pay to you your fee for deliveries, that fee is your income, that income is then subject to VAT which you declare to HMRC on your VAT return. But yes, you will have to pay 20% VAT out of the fee you receive from Uber. For example you receive £100 from Uber, you pay £16.66 of that as VAT to HMRC and keep £83.34 If Uber are aware that you are VAT registered, they will issue an invoice to you with the VAT showing and it will be 20% VAT on top of your delivery fee, for example £100 + £20 VAT fee from Uber, so you would be better off. If you have told Uber you are VAT registered and they are still issuing invoices to you without VAT, then that is an issue only you and Uber can resolve, nothing to do with HMRC.

Why has the letter to reset not arrived? The letter will go to the address used for the VAT registration, if that address is now wrong, then you will never receive the reset letter. You don't explain why your attempts to contact HMRC have been unsuccessful, what does that mean? Are you saying you've called the IT helpdesk and never got through or that the IT helpdesk refused to help you or that you've been calling the wrong number, you must call the IT VAT helpdesk to fix this problem. https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/hm-revenue-customs/contact/vat-online-services-helpdesk If you are late filing 2 quarters that means this has been going on for 6 months (2 qtrs) which doesn't make sense, should not take that long to resolve this. If you call the IT helpdesk you will be asked to confirm your identity for security purposes so the person who calls should be a Finance person, preferably the one responsible for VAT/filing VAT returns, that person must have access to accounting software/records in order to answer security questions about the business - date of VAT registration, what the Box 5 figure of the last filed VAT return was, names of the Directors. Think about this from HMRC's perspective, you've just stated your company has restructured the finance team, HMRC do not know this, the people that lost their jobs in the restructure might try and pretend to be the business and call HMRC to try and access your gateway in order to cause damage to your VAT account by filing fraudulent returns, so HMRC have to be 100% certain they are speaking to a representative of the business.....which is why it is so frustrating trying to regain access to your gateway, but HMRC have to treat security seriously. I come across these access issue all the time as a tax agent, and I have never not failed at regaining access, you just have to call the IT helpdesk and answer the questions, if you can't answer the questions then find someone who can answer the questions (ie, the business owner), if all else fails then you can ask for the account to be reset but then you're not receiving the letters so you may need to fix that issue first before you can then ask for a reset letter to be sent to you. You can set up a new gateway but to transfer the VAT number from the old gateway to the new gateway you will need to have the VAT number dis-associated from the old gateway and guess what, to do that you have to call HMRC and pass the security tests and then HMRC will transfer the VAT number from one gateway to another - these are all security protocols designed to protect you, if they are frustrating when things go wrong, that is by design, because if it was easy to change things with an email or a random phone call, then fraud would be rampant, resetting things has to be difficult. You cannot add your existing VAT number to your new gateway, the system only allows the VAT number to exist on one gateway at a time, to transfer it to another gateway will involve speaking to HMRC. Appreciate it is frustrating but don't blame HMRC, this is like you forgetting your login for your personal bank, the process to regain access is meant to be difficult, the banks have to protect your account. Whilst a personal bank reset usually involves an email and a code to your mobile, HMRC operate the same reset system but in your case you can't gain access because you don't know your password/log in details or the 2-step code goes to a phone that you no longer have access to. If this situation involved your personal bank, the solution is to go into branch in town and ID yourself and have it reset, HMRC don't have branches so their reset process is telephone only based. My point is that don't get frustrated with the system, just go along with the system as to fight it is a losing battle, gather your facts call the IT helpdesk and answer the security questions and then once security is passed, the helpdesk will be able to reset things there and then on the phone call. Presumably you are calculating your VAT returns in your accounting software but just unable to file those returns, there is nothing to stop you from paying HMRC the VAT liabilities you owe, just make a payment via your bank and use your VAT number as payment reference, this way, when you do eventually get access and file those returns, HMRC will see that you did actually pay on time and will cancel the penalties. This at least minimises your exposure to escalating penalties.

What VAT are you referring to? I presume you mean the VAT incurred by you in finishing off the property to completion stage? Buying a part finished new build dwelling would be zero rated from vendor to buyer, so there'd be no VAT charged/reclaimed in that transaction. If that is what you mean then the input tax on costs associated with finishing off the build may be recoverable if your intention is to sell the property (registering for VAT, make zero rated sale of a new dwelling), not all input tax is recoverable, such as white goods. If you intend to finish off the property and live in it yourself as your main residence, then you may be able to reclaim certain input tax back under the self build DIY scheme, again the majority of labour would be zero rated y the contractors but the materials you buy directly from merchants may be recoverable, guidance on the elf build DIY scheme here. https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/vat-refunds-using-the-diy-housebuilder-scheme

Unless you are a not for profit organisation (Ltd or sole trader/Partnership) then generally your sales would be standard rated. If you are a qualified medical profession and your medical profession has a recognised medial register then your supplies might be exempt, but even if you were a medically qualified Clinical Psychologist, the medical exemption only extends to where you are diagnosing or treating a medically recognised condition and your activity here may not meet that standard. For example, a patient might see a private GP about an ailment, the GP examines the patient, runs some tests and concludes the patient has vertigo and prescribes some tablets to remedy the illness. That supply is exempt because GP has identified and treated a medical condition. The patients employer comes to the private GP and asks for a health assessment of their employee and GP does a report confirming the patient has vertigo and can't work in high spaces, that report is standard rated because it is not treating the pateitn, it is for the benefit of the employer. Coming back to you, if you are performing an assessment on the patient and you diagnose the child has dyslexia and your medical qualification permits you to make such a diagnosis (ie, you're a Clinical Psychologist and not a Psychotherapist - as Psychologists are not on a medical register) then your assessment and diagnoses probably does sound like it might be an exempt supply if the report is for the patient/parent, but if the school is asking you to assess the pupil then the benefit of your assessment is for the school not for the pupil (directly) and would be standard rated. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/health-professionals-pharmaceutical-products-and-vat-notice-70157#section2 - See all of section 2 and 4 and note that a Clinical psychologist and Psychologist are often the same in definition but a Psychotherapists is not usually qualified to the extent they are on a medical register recognised by Psychologists - see be very clear as to whether you are on a medical register (The BPS) or you're just a Psycho-Therapist who are not trained to the same higher standard as BPS members and whom don;t have a medical register. But if you're a Clinical Psychologist and you are diagnosing a patients mental abilities and producing a report that identified the ailment and proposes treatments/solutions to that ailment then your supply is likely exempt, else it'll be standard rated. You probably need to speak to your Accountant to get a definitive answer as HMRC don't give advice here and it'll be difficult to give specific advice to you without knowing the ins and outs and precise details of what you do (on a register or not) and who you do it for (patient or school).

You can only have one sole trader activity under your name, so your chainsaw belts and your cherry picker activities are all reported under your sole trader/self assessment return. Be careful with language, the cherry picker activity cannot possibly operate "as it's own company", it isn't a company, it is an income stream for your sole trader, what you mean is that the cherry picker traded under a trading name "cherry pickers r us" for example, but it cannot trade as "Cherry Picker Ltd" as it is not a company formed at Companies House. VAT registration for a sole trader applies to ALL income under the sole trader, so you should have been charging VAT on your chainsaw chains business from the day you registered the sole trader for VAT, remember there are not two businesses here, there is just one - the sole trader - and then if you have a window cleaning business, an eBay business, a cherry picker business and also a fish & chip shop, all of those incomes all fall under the one VAT registration as the sole trader. To answer your question, yes you can retain the VAT number because that number belongs to you as a sole trader, if you stop the cherry picker business then that's fine but you still have the other income stream (chainsaw chain sales). You are also correct that selling the cherry picker will need to be plus VAT. If you deregister for VAT whilst you still own the cherry picker then you will have to declare output tax on the value of the cherry picker, so don;t deregister for VAT until you've obtained a valuation for the cherry picker so that you can declare the correct output tax upon deregistration. You may also have to declare output tax on the chainsaw chain sales that you made when you first registered for VAT because any income you make from any source is subject to VAT once you are VAT registered as a sole trader. If I read your post right, you registered the cherry picker business for VAT from the start (May 2024), so any chain belt sales are also subject to VAT from May 2024 as well as any cherry picker rental/sales.

Correct, but her sales are not zero rated, they are outside the scope of VAT. It's just a small technical point, but if they were genuine zero rated sales, they would count towards the VAT threshold, whereas Outside the Scope does not. The confusion may arise because in QuickBooks/Xero you are probably best coding the sales to 0% so that the net sale hits the Box 6 of the VAT return but with no output tax in Box 1, whereas if you use "No VAT" code in Xero/QB then the sale doesn't hit the return anywhere and your client would be filing an entirely Nil VAT return which would look odd to HMRC. So zero rate in the Accounts but remember they are actually outside the scope of VAT sales.

HMRC are not going to be able to advice on the VAT rules in Ireland, but if the event is your event (you are charging customers an entrance fee to attend the event), then read https://www.gov.uk/guidance/vat-place-of-supply-of-services-notice-741a#sec9 section 9.2 states that entrance to an event is taxed where the event takes place. That guidance suggests you have an obligation to register for VAT in Ireland, doing that would then allow you to reclaim the VAT charged to you buy the hotel/venue. Else you may be able to reclaim the VAT from Ireland, not on your UK VAT return, you can only reclaim UK VAT on a UK VAT return, so you'd need to submit a 13th Directive refund claim directly to the Irish tax office requesting a refund. 

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It is the latter scenario that applies. Let's assume you invoice your customer £100 (wage) + £20 VAT (total of £120) and your customer pays you £120. If you are operating the Flat Rate Scheme, you pay 10% of the TOTAL invoice value, so in the above example, you pay 10% of £120 as output tax to HMRC in Box 1 of your VAT return. The maths are £120 x 10% = £12 VAT due to HMRC, whereas if you were not on the Flat rate Scheme, you would pay £20 VAT. You may not actually raise a physical invoice to your customer, your customer will probably be operating a scheme called "self-billing", whereby the customer (probably Amazon or Evri) will raise your sales invoice for you and pay you the £120 and you have the invoice or document that the customer has raised on your behalf as your proof of sale/your invoice for your own business records. You should perhaps take some advice because Flat Rate Scheme is simpler to operate but you cannot reclaim any VAT on purchases, as a delivery driver you will be incurring many costs such as van/car lease rental, maintenance of vehicle such as tyres or repairs, fuel must be a big cost, mobile phone for taking photos of deliveries, etc This VAT cannot be reclaimed by your business, so you need to do some calculations to decide if Flat Rate is better for you or not, depends on your expenditures/costs. For example, as earlier, you invoice £100 + £20 VAT to your customer, under Flat Rate you pay over £12 to HMRC and "keep" £8, this "keep" is to compensate you for not being able to reclaim VAT on your purchases (fuel, mobile, etc). Whereas if you were not on Flat rate you would pay £20 VAT to HMRC but able to reclaim VAT on your expenditure. Remember, the customer pays the VAT of £20 so the £20 isn't coming out of your pocket whether you are on Flat rate or normal VAT scheme, you just need to decide if it is better to use Flat Rate because it's easier/simpler for you or whether you can make more money by reclaiming VAT on your costs.

If all the supplies are outside the scope of VAT because your client only makes supplies of services to overseas customers, then outside the scope supplies do not count towards VAT registration threshold, so your client could do £500k of sales but not trigger a VAT registration. Be prepared for HMRC to maybe enquire into the business when the year end accounts are filed and corporation taxes are paid, HMRC will see the turnover will be more than £90k and HMRC may ask why the business is not VAT registered, but that's a perfectly natural question for HMC to ask based on the figures they will see in the Accounts. Client can voluntarily register for VAT if they want to reclaim input tax incurred in the UK. May need to weigh up the cost of compliance/filing VAT returns vs the amount of input tax that can be reclaimed (mobile, internet, accountants fees), so may not be worth registering for VAT but the option is there if desired. Previous query here no this forum from last year - https://community.hmrc.gov.uk/customerforums/vat/c6fae1ce-b344-ef11-b4ac-000d3a86e14c

As you mention "the items were held in the UK and sent to end customers", this suggests you are selling goods rather than services. Goods exported out of the UK is a zero rated sale, zero rating counts towards VAT registration threshold, based on your breakdown and assuming these are all goods sent abroad, the business has exceeded the VAT registration threshold. You may consider seeking "exception from registration", but the route to doing that is to apply for VAT registration and tick the "exception" box and then provide an explanation as to why the business turnover will drop back below the threshold in the next 12 months. https://www.gov.uk/register-for-vat "If you go over the threshold temporarily You can apply for a registration ‘exception’ if your taxable turnover goes over the threshold temporarily. Contact HMRC to request the VAT1 registration form. You’ll need to provide evidence showing why you believe your taxable turnover will not go over the deregistration threshold of £88,000 in the next 12 months. HMRC will consider your exception and write to confirm if you get one. If not, they’ll register you for VAT."