Advanced VAT

1 Adjustment of errors on previous VAT returns
■ Items regarded as errors
■ Adjustments not regarded as errors
■ Net errors under £10,000
■ Net errors over £10,000
■ When should a discovered error be adjusted?
■ What happens next when a voluntary disclosure is made?
■ Default interest
■ When is it liable to a penalty?

2 Planning for VAT
■ Choice of retail scheme
■ Cash, annual and flat rate accounting schemes
■ The ‘option to tax’ and ‘old’ buildings
■ Timing of invoices, accruals, returns, tax points, bad debts and input tax
■ Partial exemption
■ The Capital Goods Scheme
■ Group registration – How to qualify – Definition of qualifying requirements
– Control requirements
– Advantages of VAT group treatment
– Disadvantages of VAT group treatment
■ Use of business cars
■ Items subject to Lennartz Accounting – Items not subject to Lennartz Accounting
– Worked example

3 Intra-EC trade
■ Acquisitions and the Postponed Accounting Scheme (PAS)
■ Dispatches
■ International services
■ VAT liability of services
■ Place of supply – the ‘basic rule’
■ Services relating to land, transport and intermediaries
■ Services supplied where performed
■ Received – imported services – from EC suppliers and non-EC suppliers
■ The ‘reverse charge’ procedure for accounting for VAT
■ Recovery of input tax

4 Deductible business expenses
■ When are expenses deductible?
■ Non-deductible items
■ Necessary evidence for claiming input tax
■ Invoices for cash and carry wholesalers
■ Invoices in company employee’s name
■ Flat rate subsistence expenses
■ Expenses for which no invoices are required
■ Business entertainment expenses
■ Domestic accommodation

5 Business gifts, samples and loss of goods
■ A definition of business gifts
■ Gifts on which VAT is not due
■ Gifts used for business purposes
■ Tax certificates
■ Business promotion schemes, the constantly changing rules
■ Dealer loader schemes
■ Linked goods schemes
■ Money-off coupons and various vouchers
■ VAT accounting for samples
■ Industrial and commercial samples
■ Testing and market research
■ Business and private use of assets
■ Loss of goods, whether or not VAT is due

6 Latest VAT news