Jay Cooke

Have contacted helpline, they took all the details of the businesses and a week later, nothing has changed, taxpayers still showing as sole traders, still can't import goods into the UK, still no replies from any of my emails to VAT registrations, change of circumstances team or change of entity team, presumably nobody is opening emails in any of these inboxes. Any other suggestions as to how to correct the errors made by HMRC?

So your organisation has received some grant funding and you are contracting with a third party to provide some sort of service and you are paying for that service using the grant funding. You need to be specific as to what these services are that you are buying in.....are the services construction/property related, are they connected to the supplies of education? Taking the lead from HMRC Admin 25's link and assuming the DFE funding is for something education related, if you are paying a third party to provide some sort of vocational training or similar then it could be that the suppliers have to treat their supply to you as "exempt", see section 13 of the link to Notice 701/30 which looks at government funded training schemes....if this is what is happening in your situation then refer the supplier to the above Notice/section 13.

Just to add to HMRC's response, you can never reclaim foreign VAT on a UK VAT return, you can only reclaim UK VAT charged by UK VAT registered businesses on a UK VAT return,....remember how VAT is meant to work between two companies in the same Country. From what you describe, the Italians have correctly charged Italian VAT because they have sold the goods to you in Italy (domestic sale in Italy), title/ownership of the goods moves from Italian supplier to you - physically - in Italy, Italian supplier has then shipped YOUR goods from Italy to Ireland. Technically you have acquired goods in Italy, place of supply of goods is where the goods are at time of sale, as you sold goods that you physically own in Italy, you are required to register for VAT in Italy because you are a UK company, not an Italian/resident company, VAT registration threshold for non-resident companies is Nil....you would register for VAT in Italy, reclaim the 22% VAT charged by the Italians as input tax on your Italian VAT return and then you would make an Intra-EU zero rated sale from Italy to Ireland. If it is a one-off and nobody has noticed then take the 22% hit on your profit margin and don't do it again or if this is going to be a regular arrangement, then consider registration in either Italy (where your supplier is) or Ireland (where your customer is) because whichever you choose, you'll then have a foot in the EU in terms of VAT and so you're not losing out on irrecoverable foreign VAT).

If you visit here https://www.gov.uk/check-uk-vat-number and enter your VAT number, the address shown will be the address you use for setting up the government gateway.

Your business should have its own government gateway. I'm a tax agent, what happens with a client is we link our agent gateway to the clients gateway, we do that by going onto our agent gateway and inputting the VAT number/registration date of the client, that then generates an email link which we cut/paste and send to the client. The client then logs into their own gateway using the link we have sent and the client than "approves" us as agent and then we (agent) are linked to the client's gateway, this allows us to file VAT returns for the client. My point is, you will have your own gateway, we cannot link our agent gateway to nothing, we have to link it to another gateway, the client cannot "authorise us as agent" unless the client is logged into their own gateway. Now it might be that the Accountant set that client gateway up for you - certainly when I do a VAT registration for an overseas business, I create a gateway for them and share the login details with them so they always have their own access to their own gateway but by me setting it up, it just helps them out as English may not be their first language and HMRC website can be daunting for overseas businesses. The fact the agent has linked their account (and now delinked) would suggest you do have a gateway, question is did the Accountants set it up or did you/someone at your business? You can call the HMRC IT VAT Helpline https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/hm-revenue-customs/contact/vat-online-services-helpdesk and go through the security measures to prove your identify and then ask if HMRC can unlink the VAT account from the "other" gateway. But I'd go back to the Accountant first and double check what they have said, they may think that you just wanted confirmation they unlinked their account, but what you are asking for is "did you create a government gateway for me, if so, what are the login details", if they say they never set up a gateway for you, then you'll have to call the helpline as per above link.

What do you mean when you say you "input the VAT return just after midnight"....you cannot file VAT return manually by inputting numbers onto a VAT return, they can only be filed via accounting software. Two exceptions to that, you have special approval to file VAT returns manually (inputting values by keying them into the VAT return boxes) or if this is your final VAT return just before deregistration. That the software is stating a duplicate return would suggest the return has been submitted, it can take 24hours for HMRC systems to update, but that updating takes place overnight, so if you file after midnight, may not show up until the following day.

Thanks HMRC Admin 10, have contacted helpline and actioned.

Feedback .

Whilst waiting for HMRC Admin to reply.... For triangulation, you need three parties (hence the "tri"), all three parties need to be in the EU. So assuming you are looking at say a French customer places an order with you and you order the item from a German supplier and you are using your Irish VAT number to place the order with the German supplier and German supplier ships the goods direct to French customer....then this sale takes place outside of the UK and would not be recorded on the UK VAT return as the sale is nothing to do with the UK (from a VAT perspective, goods are in Germany, going to France via Irish intermediary).

"Person" is thw word used in the legislation to describe i) a sole trader, ii) a partnership or iii) a company. Basically, whatever form of business structure you operate as is "the person". For example, you could be a sole trader selling IT consultancy services, but you can also have a company of which you are a 100% shareholder, in this example there are two taxable persons, a sole trader and a company, trust that makes sense. So if you own a company, even a UK td, if you are a Director and non-resident in UK, then the Ltd is seen as non established in the UK and so the VAT threshold is Nil. As for whether you are making taxable supplies in the UK, if you are performing digital services for UK consumers (B2C), that would suggest you would need a UK VAT registration, but it does depend on exactly what sort of services you are proving under the definition "print on demand", but it sounds like a digital service.