Our recent VAT successes
- For a national charity, we negotiated with HMRC to successfully obtain zero rating on the construction of a new respite break centre, saving the charity over £1m in VAT.
- A charity, which provides government funded training and helps improve the skills and employability of the long term unemployed, and has experienced a ten-fold increase in turnover over the last four years, attended one of our accredited VAT seminars. As a follow up, we undertook a detailed VAT review. This has resulted in a successful claim of over declared VAT in excess of £1m.
- We successfully negotiated with HMRC the apportionment of membership income of a cultural body between the standard rated charge for membership and the additional charge paid by members paying subscriptions on a monthly basis which were exempt from VAT. Net repayment £100k+.
- We advised and assisted on restructuring of income streams in a national charity, successfully changing liability from exempt to standard rated giving rise to annual savings of £250k of additional input tax recovery with no loss of sales.
- We advised a membership organisation on the liability of subscription income, successfully challenging HMRC's ruling that the income was standard rated and gaining exemption. Net repayment of tax and interest of £125k and ongoing annual savings of £30k.
- We advised a national charity to revise their system for apportionment of input tax within partial exemption special method; we assisted with implementation and negotiated change of procedure with HMRC without necessity of changing method. Net repayment of £220k and on ongoing additional input tax recovery of £60k - £70k per annum.
- We advised on the change in the membership liability on supplies of a charity and revision of partial exemption method, successfully negotiating changes with HMRC. We also assisted with implementation of the changes. Annual net increase in recoverable VAT of £45k per annum.
- A charity client has been honoured as the beneficiary of a central London annual appeal. The charity has acquired major sponsors, who receive a variety of benefits. We have obtained a ruling from HMRC that the resulting income can be treated as a single supply of qualifying fundraising, thus avoiding over £120k in lost VAT.
- A number of churches have benefited from advice on the design plans for building works to increase the facilities available. In many cases the churches had already approached HMRC for a ruling on the VAT liability of the works and had found this to be standard rated. By reviewing the business plans for the churches and, in some cases, recommending changes to the design we were able to obtain VAT zero rating and save the churches significant sums of £100k+ on the building costs. In some cases this was the make or break for the project to go ahead.
- We saved an international charity over £400k by agreeing a retrospective claim for input VAT that had not previously been identified. The charity was involved in taking donated goods overseas and had not appreciated that it was possible to treat these as taxable supplies with associated input tax recovery.
- A charity wanted to acquire land that carried VAT at 17.5% because the vendor had opted to tax. The charity wanted to build on that land and whilst able to get the construction costs at the zero rate was not able to mitigate the VAT on the land itself. By setting up a development company which purchased the land and then constructed the building, the charity was able to obtain its new building and land free of VAT.
- We reviewed a schedule of works relating to alterations being made to a listed building for charitable use and secured zero rating on a large proportion, saving our client over £100k in VAT.
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