With VAT affecting almost every business transaction, our specialist VAT advisors can help you to minimise your liability.
Although in principle, VAT is simple in its basic concept, the legislation and regulations governing VAT are ever changing, making it a complex area. It makes sense therefore to engage a specialist VAT advisor to check on the latest VAT position before making any commercial decision.
Specialist VAT advisors
Our VAT advisors are specialists in their field. Not only do they need to understand the complex UK and European rules and the effects of all cases, but also how those rules and interpretations can affect your business.
We appreciate that every organisation is different and the emphasis of our work is to understand individual problems and resolve them in a practical and realistic manner to support you.
VAT advice and guidance
Almost every business transaction has a VAT effect, so active VAT planning could result in savings being made.
We offer advice on the most tax efficient way to structure specific transactions, whether they are acquisitions, disposals, reorganisations or property deals. We will guide you away from the pitfalls and ensure that the necessary steps are taken to minimise your liability to VAT. The services we offer include:
- Consultancy advice in relation to:
- new ventures
- overseas businesses
- international trading
- partial exemption methods
- property deals
- corporate finance
- seeking formal rulings
- disputes with HM Revenue & Customs
- Litigation advice concerning:
- reconsiderations
- negotiations
- appeals
- instructions for counsel
- VAT registrations and de-registrations
- VAT administration and compliance, completion of VAT returns and dealing with associated problems, errors or corrections
- advice in relation to VAT inspections and issues arising
- VAT reviews, health checks and due diligence investigations
- Review of your VAT accounting systems
We can review your VAT accounting systems and procedures, to help you avoid penalties for innocent errors or where VAT is accounted for in the wrong VAT quarter.
As well as highlighting errors that could prove costly if identified by HMRC, we will help you review your current operations to identify areas of VAT risks, assess present controls within these areas, advise on any improvements necessary and highlight potential savings that can be made.
The next step
For more information, or to find out how our VAT accountants can help you with value added tax, please contact one of our VAT advisors.
Almost two thirds (65%) of all penalties and decisions issued by HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) to taxpayers in relation to VAT matters are subsequently found to be incorrect and are overturned on internal review.
Our research has shown that the value of UK private investors’ holdings of gilts in their ISAs has fallen by 21% to £931 million in the last year from £1.1 billion (from 31 March 2009 to 5 April 2010). 
The value of private (i.e. unlisted) UK companies acquired in the year to end July 2009 has plunged by 65% to just £6.
One of the key aims of the Companies Act 2006 was to modernise and simplify company law and, in particular, to introduce a less regulated regime for private companies. From 1st October 2009 new model articles will be introduced for private companies limited by shares.
Businesses should revisit VAT returns between 1973 and 1997 and claim for any VAT they are owed by March 31 2009 before the window closes for good and the three-year limit on VAT claims comes into force.
The value of private (i.e. unlisted) UK companies acquired over the last year was £19.
Returns from tax advantaged Venture Capital Trusts (VCTs) and Enterprise Investment Schemes (EISs) are lagging far behind the average performance of private equity funds, says our experts. VCTs and EIS are traditionally one of the main routes for individual private investors to access private equity.
A number of changes to VAT invoicing regulations came into force on 1st October 2007, bringing domestic legislation into line with EU VAT law.?Find out how your business will be affected..
A cheaper alternative to the Conservative Party’s proposal to raise the threshold at which inheritance tax is paid to ?1 million would be to exempt taxpayers’ family homes (principal private residences) from IHT up to a value of ?1 million, but not other forms of assets, says our experts.
One of the first jobs for the new Chancellor of the Exchequer should be to reform the UK’s VAT rules says Simon Newark, VAT Partner at our London office: “The UK’s rules on VAT are incomprehensible to the average taxpayer and far more complex than they need to be.”
