VATExchange.co.uk

One of the most important ways we can help with is dealing with VAT assessmets. Indeed it is often
the only time an accountant or a business owner picks up the phone to ask for specialist VAT help and the first time that the client concerned has ever engaged a VAT consultant.

There is a formal review and appeals process which is explained in detail here http://tinvurl.com/mjk6ss on the HMRC website.

And of course many assessments are for relatively small amounts of VAT or as a result of a very simple error - such as putting the wrong figure in the wrong box on the VAT return or reconciliation issues. And you will deal with these.

But we can help when you need a second opinion or it needs more specialized knowledge.

The most important thing is to get us involved as soon as possible to ensure that we have time to request a review or make an appeal to the Tribunal within the 30 day time limit.

Sometimes the assessments are correct and all we can do is to confirm the details and tell the business owner that they have to pay.

And in these cases, we'll work with you and your client to ensure that the same errors don't happen again by reviewing the issue that caused the assessment and helping to implement whatever changes are needed to put things right.

But if we think the assessment is wrong, we'll help your client through the appeals process to ensure that the assessment is fully withdrawn or reduced as much as possible.

And sometimes it is possible to get really good results even when the situation seems to be hopeless!

• A large engineering group received an assessment for £2.5m VAT plus interest of £300k because they had not retained proper evidence of export over a 2 year period. In fact they had lots of other evidence that the goods had been exported and a detailed analysis of the transactions enabled them to make a successful appeal against the assessment, which was reduced to just over £50k.
• In another case concerning a property, the assessment of over £l00k was withdrawn because it was issued to the wrong company. The officer had failed to appreciate that the property was owned by a second group company and in fact ended up issuing incorrect assessments to each company. Because of the circumstances of the case, the assessments were both withdrawn and could not be re-issued.
• Other situations include successfully appealing against assessments which are based on differences between the turnover shown on a businesses' annual accounts and the turnover shown on the VAT returns. Very often these arise due to timing differences when recognising income for accounting purposes, but the business has not been able to explain the differences to HMRC. This is the sort of situation when we can work with accountant to get the best result.

It's always worth asking for a specialist opinion in these situations. If the assessment is entirely wrong, then it should be withdrawn and if it's partially wrong, then it should be reduced.