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vat reclaim

Barryscotland
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Barryscotland Regular Member

Barryscotland

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Nearing the end of our build and trying to get the VAT reclaim filled out. 

 

Question is, on the Goverment website it says "You must send the original invoices, not copies"

 

Majority of our stuff that has come from merchants is delivered with a delivery line, then once paid I download my invoice from my account and they all have COPY multiple times across the whole invoice. I've never had an original invoice. Is this going to cause a problem???

 

Bit stressed over the whole Vat return thing as if we dont get the 25k back we are going to be living on porridge for the forseeable future!

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joe90 Advanced Member

joe90

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I would recomend you get a VAT specialist to do this, he will know exactly what to do in fact mine saved me money by claiming more than I expected so saved his fee and more. He even contacted suppliers for original invoices when I had copies. I can recommend  

https://www.vat431.co.uk And quite a few here have used him with good results ?

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Barryscotland Regular Member

Barryscotland

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3 minutes ago, joe90 said:

I would recomend you get a VAT specialist to do this, he will know exactly what to do in fact mine saved me money by claiming more than I expected so saved his fee and more. He even contacted suppliers for original invoices when I had copies. I can recommend  

https://www.vat431.co.uk And quite a few here have used him with good results ?

 

 

Would you mind giving me an indication of the fee involved? Might be piece of mind to let a professional do it.

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joe90 Advanced Member

joe90

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39 minutes ago, Barryscotland said:

 

 

Would you mind giving me an indication of the fee involved? Might be piece of mind to let a professional do it.

Give him a ring (can’t remember how much he charged), he is very accommodating and mention this forum as I know he reads it. Paperwork is not my thing and I didn’t want the worry as I know HMRC are a law unto themselves and can even fine you if you get it wrong.

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nod Advanced Member

nod

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They are not looking to catch you out 

We found putting the claim together was easy but mind numbing 

We copied all our invoices which was the most time consuming part 

EBay recipes Anything that shows you have paid the vat 

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ToughButterCup Advanced Member

ToughButterCup

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2 hours ago, Barryscotland said:

...

I've never had an original invoice. Is this going to cause a problem???

...

 

No.

Every single one of my receipts or invoices were printed out at home from the online accounts I held with merchants.  The HMRC Inspector did not question any of the invoices, though for fun it appears, he decided to have a brain-fart and confuse the Date of Entry In The Valuation List with the Date of the document telling us our property  had been added to the Valuation List.  It appears he needs 6 months (and counting) at least to finish organising his paper clips and sharpening his pencils before giving us a decision. 

 

For the sake of completeness, here's the link to our on-going saga. Fore-warned is fore-armed.

Good luck; we'll be re-using teabags soon too. You're in good company here.

Ian

 

 

P.S. I very rarely disagree with Gary, above ( @nod ), but our Inspector thinks that '...catching [us] out ...' is his job. I really would not have minded if the Inspector had been correct. 

Edited by ToughButterCup
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nod Advanced Member

nod

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3 hours ago, ToughButterCup said:

 

No.

Every single one of my receipts or invoices were printed out at home from the online accounts I held with merchants.  The HMRC Inspector did not question any of the invoices, though for fun it appears, he decided to have a brain-fart and confuse the Date of Entry In The Valuation List with the Date of the document telling us our property  had been added to the Valuation List.  It appears he needs 6 months (and counting) at least to finish organising his paper clips and sharpening his pencils before giving us a decision. 

 

For the sake of completeness, here's the link to our on-going saga. Fore-warned is fore-armed.

Good luck; we'll be re-using teabags soon too. You're in good company here.

Ian

 

 

P.S. I very rarely disagree with Gary, above ( @nod ), but our Inspector thinks that '...catching [us] out ...' is his job. I really would not have minded if the Inspector had been correct. 

Bloodyhell 

That’s terrible Ian 

Hope you get sorted out soon

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jack Advanced Member

jack

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4 hours ago, nod said:

They are not looking to catch you out 

 

I'm not sure how much time you've spent looking through the VAT reclaim forum, but very often, they are very much trying to catch you out.

 

HMRC not that long ago tried to apply serious penalties for fraud when someone accidentally tried to reclaim self build VAT back when they weren't actually eligible. They answered every question on the forms accurately, so it wasn't like they were trying to pull a swift one, it was just a simple misunderstanding. The tribunal who kicked HMRC's case out was livid at the way HMRC had behaved.


They've randomly tried similar against people who've accidentally tried to claim items not covered by the self-build reclaim rules.

 

There's example after example of HMRC pulling this kind of nonsense.

 

Worse, the processes are extremely opaque. For example, I got a full refund with no questions asked, over 5 years after moving in to my place. There were long periods where no costs were incurred. I assume that a couple of late, biggish invoices helped me over their interpretation of "within 3 months of completion), but who knows? Maybe it's just who I got on the day.

 

Whatever the truth, HMRC is not your friend, and people should do everything in their power to avoid giving them a reason to issue a negative judgement. Even if you're completely right, they'll drag you through an internal appeal process and then to tribunal, costing you time, money and stress.

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jack Advanced Member

jack

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5 minutes ago, joe90 said:

It was previous posts like @jack above that made me use “the VAT man”, and spend my time doing stuff I enjoyed and didn’t get stressed about.?‍♂️ (Plus I got more back through him than his fee was).

 

TBF, nothing your VAT man could have done would have saved me if HMRC had decided to rule that I'd claimed too late. 

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nod Advanced Member

nod

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1 hour ago, jack said:

 

I'm not sure how much time you've spent looking through the VAT reclaim forum, but very often, they are very much trying to catch you out.

 

HMRC not that long ago tried to apply serious penalties for fraud when someone accidentally tried to reclaim self build VAT back when they weren't actually eligible. They answered every question on the forms accurately, so it wasn't like they were trying to pull a swift one, it was just a simple misunderstanding. The tribunal who kicked HMRC's case out was livid at the way HMRC had behaved.


They've randomly tried similar against people who've accidentally tried to claim items not covered by the self-build reclaim rules.

 

There's example after example of HMRC pulling this kind of nonsense.

 

Worse, the processes are extremely opaque. For example, I got a full refund with no questions asked, over 5 years after moving in to my place. There were long periods where no costs were incurred. I assume that a couple of late, biggish invoices helped me over their interpretation of "within 3 months of completion), but who knows? Maybe it's just who I got on the day.

 

Whatever the truth, HMRC is not your friend, and people should do everything in their power to avoid giving them a reason to issue a negative judgement. Even if you're completely right, they'll drag you through an internal appeal process and then to tribunal, costing you time, money and stress.

I spent about ten minutes looking through the form 

Put the claim in and received exactly what we had claimed £29316 

I can only go off experience 

Seemed very straight forward compared to some of the vat I deal with 

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Susie Regular Member

Susie

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Does anybody know the answer to the OP.

7 hours ago, Barryscotland said:

Nearing the end of our build and trying to get the VAT reclaim filled out. 

 

Question is, on the Goverment website it says "You must send the original invoices, not copies"

 

Majority of our stuff that has come from merchants is delivered with a delivery line, then once paid I download my invoice from my account and they all have COPY multiple times across the whole invoice. I've never had an original invoice. Is this going to cause a problem???

 

Bit stressed over the whole Vat return thing as if we dont get the 25k back we are going to be living on porridge for the forseeable future!

I imagine copies to be photo copies as a lot of merchants print copy all over the online invoice, can anyone confirm this?

 

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nod Advanced Member

nod

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40 minutes ago, Susie said:

Does anybody know the answer to the OP.

I imagine copies to be photo copies as a lot of merchants print copy all over the online invoice, can anyone confirm this?

 

It still worth making copies 

Whilst we sent our recorded delivery 

It felt prudent to make copies 

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joe90 Advanced Member

joe90

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2 hours ago, jack said:

 

TBF, nothing your VAT man could have done would have saved me if HMRC had decided to rule that I'd claimed too late. 

True, but knowing me with paperwork I would have made mistakes, peace of mind did it fir me. 

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jack Advanced Member

jack

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1 hour ago, nod said:

I spent about ten minutes looking through the form 

Put the claim in and received exactly what we had claimed £29316 

I can only go off experience 

Seemed very straight forward compared to some of the vat I deal with 

 

Your experience may have been straightforward, but I'm specifically responding to where you said "They are not looking to catch you out".

 

I disagree, and I think it's important that people not get complacent or think that HMRC is on their side.

 

32 minutes ago, ToughButterCup said:

You wot? How the f..... ?

 

A brief summary of the background and outcome is here. There's more detail scattered across many posts in the VAT sub-forums.

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Adrian Walker Regular Member

Adrian Walker

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10 hours ago, joe90 said:

I would recomend you get a VAT specialist to do this, he will know exactly what to do in fact mine saved me money by claiming more than I expected so saved his fee and more. He even contacted suppliers for original invoices when I had copies. I can recommend  

https://www.vat431.co.uk And quite a few here have used him with good results ?

 

Andrew at VAT431 is an excellent resource.  Good value for money

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joe90 Advanced Member

joe90

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3 hours ago, nod said:

I’m not why a vat specialist would be needed 

But like other things during the build I focussed on things I was capable of doing well and subbing out those I was not (plastering and paperwork !).

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DragsterDriver Regular Member

DragsterDriver

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On 15/02/2022 at 09:24, joe90 said:

I would recomend you get a VAT specialist to do this, he will know exactly what to do in fact mine saved me money by claiming more than I expected so saved his fee and more. He even contacted suppliers for original invoices when I had copies. I can recommend  

https://www.vat431.co.uk And quite a few here have used him with good results ?

I’ve just spoken to this chap, I feel at ease already.

 

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