Jason Croke

Sounds like you should use reverse charge. Why? You have the contract with the end customer, you sub-contract some work to a business in Serbia. The Serbian business will invoice you for their work (you are their customer), their invoice will not have VAT on it as they are not based in the UK. You have made a purchase of services from outside the UK and so you reverse charge the Serbian invoice.

Hello Jan Central assessments are an estimated amount that HMRC will assess when you fail to file your VAT return. Because you have not filed your VAT return, HMRC do not know how much VAT you owe, so HMRC "guess" this amount, the central assessment. The best (and only) way to fix this is to file your VAT returns. When you file these returns, HMRC will then see what you correctly owe, HMRC will cancel the central assessments and then you will owe whatever the value of your VAT returns are. So if you file returns and your VAT liability (owe to HMRC) is £3,000 and you have paid central assessments of £1,000 then you still owe HMRC £2,000. If your VAT liability is £3,000 and you have paid central assessments of £6,000 then HMRC owe you £3,000 back. Trust that makes sense. The fact you have central assessments tells me you are not filing your VAT returns. Even if you have made no sales in the quarter and you have no purchases, you must still file a (Nil) VAT return. If you have made no sales/purchases and you are paying central assessments, file a Nil return and HMRC will refund you the credit/overpayment. If you are overseas and you do not have a UK bank account, you can supply HMRC with your foreign bank details and so that any refund comes to your foreign bank, refunds will always be in GBP and so your bank may charge a fee for accepting foreign (GBP) currency).

Do you own commercial property in the UK? commercial as in an office, factory, warehouse, retail shop, etc? What is your sole trader VAT registration for? The fact HMRC mentions property, suggests to me that you are a sole trader who owns commercial property and you opted to tax the property, so you charge VAT on the rent. is that assumption correct? or is the UK property thing a red herring? You should be able to transfer your business from sole trader to limited via the government gateway, but it is vital to understand why HMRC refused your deregistration in December 2021, if you do own commercial property that you rent, deregistering could be a disaster for you, so what is that you charge VAT on? Do you just do consultancy, retail sales on eBay or do you rent commercial property?

Why have you got a UK Ltd company when you are not UK resident? 1. What reason has HMRC given for refusing de-registration? What reason did you give on the deregistration form/online form as why you want to deregister? 2. You probably need to engage a UK accountant because there are potential tax implications, you are not your company, your company is a separate and legal "person". The UK company makes a profit in the UK and so taxes are due in the UK. You, as the Director, may take a salary or a dividend and your non-resident status affects the outcome, does the Country you reside in have a double taxation agreement with the UK government? 3. For VAT, your clients location is determined by where the contract/engagement is with. if your customer has a UK address then it is a UK customer and your services re subject to UK VAT. It does not matter where the work is performed by you, nor does it mater where your customers people are located, you are engaged with a UK entity/Limited, so you have a UK customer. 4. HMRC may give a link, but HMRC are not going to be able to give you taxation advice, they can only supply links to their guidance. 5. What is this money you are withdrawing from the company under the directors loan account? Is it salary? If so, then you may need a UK payroll. You can't just take cash out of the company, it is not your money, it belongs to the company, so what is the company giving you money for? Is it a dividend? If so, how has the dividend been calculated? is it repaying funds you injected into the business at start-up? Are those injected funds showing in the accounts/Xero? How are you intending to file your accounts at companies house? How do you know you will have prepared the accounts correctly? A UK company pays UK taxes, you seem to be extracting monies from the UK company and taking them overseas....are you paying tax on what you have taken out in the Country you reside in? Can you not get yourself an accountant in your own Country who might have a better understanding of all of these things?