VAT increase - any impact on your business?

waits until I leave on Friday & then has Monday off - Steve you are on coffee duty all Tuesday

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Clive

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For the increase in sales versus the time wasted in changing the VAT to and from 15 & 17.5% i cannot see how any business has made that much of a profit when they actually calculate the man hours.

Im not ranting (for once ) but i can honestly say the VAT change has been an absolute dead duck as far as im concerned, both from the point of view as me running a business and me being a consumer!

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Clive

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The issues surrounding the very ill conceived VAT changes, in my view, will not be known for another 2 years and 9 months. This period together with the 15 months since the first change makes up 4 years which is the period that HMRC will look back over when the 4 year cap kicks off from next month.

Yes the admin changes were a nightmare although this mainly focuses on system inability to cope with change.

HMRC have said that they realise there were lots of practical difficulties with both changes and that they will apply a light touch for those VAT periods affected by the change, however it seems to me that these periods will be a natural target for inspectors not necessarily just because of the VAT under-declaration that might be at risk because of the rate change but because this sort of change tends to highlight issues that registered traders have probably been getting wrong for years because of misunderstanding of the rules e.g. tax point dates. The 40+ pages of guidance issued by HMRC covered all of these issues and I am sure there will be more stories to come.

Barry

I also think it was more trouble than it was worth. I must admit having to re-do a couple of invoices due to this. VAT's changing again on 1st Jan as well - up to 20%...... a bit more continuity would be preferable!