Jason Croke

As a tax agent, I can also confirm that the registration helpline does not answer, you get a recorded message to say they are very busy and you should call back another time. Emails to the VRS email address are not acknowledged (either automatically or manually) and so it seems all applications just disappear into a void and no means of checking progress or asking questions. This has been the situation since May 2022, appreciate the HMRC team on this community forum try their best, but be assured by someone who submits VAT registrations daily, the registration (and de-registration) team do not answer the phone, if they do, there must be something like a 5 minute window within the working day when someone is manning the phones. Businesses are waiting on VAT numbers to import goods into the UK or to simply sell things to get this Country growing, they cannot do that without a VAT/EORI number.

That section (Boxes 8 and 9) were only for goods sold between EU businesses. Services were never recorded in Boxes 8 or 9.

As a tax agent, I am having similar problems confirming client details, even though I know all the details. I think there is a problem with HMRC software, it appears unable to match real factual data entered by the user, against the data HMRC holds. Must be a broken link somewhere as I know the answers I give are 100% correct, yet HMRC says the information is not correct.

The disbursement is from FedEx's perspective. They've had to pay import VAT on your behalf, it is not their VAT, they can't reclaim it, this is why the refer to it as a disbursement. FedEx are invoicing you for the VAT that they had to pay HMRC. Once you pay FedEx, you may be able to reclaim this VAT depending on if you are a business, if the purchase was for a business or personal purpose and whether you are partially exempt or not, etc.

I can confirm as an agent I am getting no messages either, seemingly HMRC issue VAT numbers directly to the taxpayer with no messages sent to the agent (who did the registration and who has legal authority to act on behalf of the agent). If the taxpayer is overseas, the whole point of them using a tax agent is to deal with the interactions with HMRC, if HMRC are sending letters in the post to China or America, it'll just anger and confuse the taxpayer.