The story of the strange VAT returns

A few days ago I met with a new client together with a VAT Officer to discuss the way the VAT returns were prepared by the client. Since moving to their new location they had been short of cash and although thankfully business was steadily improving, he was still short of cash every day. Every day was a battle….so the last thing he wanted was a VAT visit.

On talking through the strange figures that appeared on his VAT returns, we suddenly realised that he had been calculating the VAT on his sales incorrectly. In fact we worked out that it was possible that he had overpaid VAT by up to £20,000 over the last few years. Our client was delighted……..although there’s lots of more work to do and other implications to think through, this was a great outcome from a worrying meeting.

After meeting with the VAT Officer we then updated on things with the client and they advised that they realised that there were entitled to more on their tax credits (which I estimated to be at least £2,000pa). This was on top of the fact that we had recovered £8,000 on unclaimed tax credits in a previous year and the already £9,000 per annum new ongoing tax credits claim we had put in place for them. This had made a massive difference to keeping their business afloat.

Next we plan in the next few weeks to sit down and talk about how they can make more money though their business……..I’m sure there will be far more opportunities to help make even bigger differences there but that will be another story.