Brexit Update - SME Fund for VAT Advice & Training

It’s great to be able to report that we are starting to see grants of up to £2k being awarded to businesses in need of VAT advice and training as a result of issues arising from the end of the transition period. The fund is aimed at support for those involved in the movement of goods and the range of issues we’ve been helping clients with here at Centurion has been wide – see an earlier post on the Fund here. The VAT training courses we’ve been delivering both through our partnership with Chambers Wales - the South and Mid Wales Chamber of Commerce - and as open courses for our own network have covered sessions on “Selling Goods on line” as well as a half-day sessions on Importing and Exporting VAT rules. Should you need tailored VAT training in-house then do let us know. We also have a VAT session running with the East Midlands Chamber in June should that fit better with diaries. 

A consistent issue has been around business being clear as to the nature of their trading terms with their customers to avoid unexpected VAT issues arising in the supply chain. INCOTERMS determine which party will be responsible for the import VAT and any Duties related to the movement so it’s vital to ensure these responsibilities are understood. Delivered Duty Paid (DDP) is one which commonly catches UK suppliers out as you, the supplier, are taking responsibility for the Import VAT and Duty on arrival in the country of your customer.

Retailers selling goods online seemed to have been particularly hard hit as a result of the changes and this is exacerbated by the fact that they tend to be smaller operations with narrow margins and many have simply decided to stop selling in to the EU as a result. The SME Brexit fund is just the sort of support that these businesses are intended to benefit from.

On line retailers and indeed Online Market Places have particular EU VAT arrangements to get to grips with as we move through the year from July to be precise – as noted in our commentary here but it should not be forgotten that here in the UK we already have VAT accounting responsibilities for any Online Market Place (OMP) selling Goods to UK consumers from Overseas Sellers. These bring the responsibility for the OMP to account for the UK VAT do on such sales to consumers and a range of compliance checks will be needed by such sites to evidence that they know where their sellers are based, where the goods being sold are located and the VAT position of the customers buying off their sites – all important to ensure correct VAT accounting here in the UK.

We continue to undertake VAT Brexit Reviews as our larger clients look to resolve the practical VAT processing issues that changes around the use of Postponed VAT accounting in general or the “reverse charge” process on smaller consignments of imported goods (under £135) have brought to their accounting systems. Let’s not forget that Making VAT Digital is now rolled out and there remains the need to ensure we have appropriate digital links in place as we process VAT data through to the VAT return itself.

Life continues then in our world of VAT around Importing & Exporting but if you do find yourself in need of VAT support in this regard at least hopefully you will know to give us a call here at Centurion and even better to know that funds could be accessed to support you in that need as well.

Call us on 0330 124 7740 or email at emailus@centurionvat.com

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