I need help and it doesn't seem to me that HMRC are particularly willing to help every time I call as they do not give me an answer but rather refer me to publications which again do not answer my question.
Situation: I have a new client who has taken over a grocery store from a previous client. The new client now imports roughly £100k of goods from Poland (EU member state) in to the UK. When invoiced for these goods, the invoices are obviously not charged with VAT but some products are standard rated and some are zero rated. The client is on the retail apportionment (1) scheme. Therefore, we work out what percentage of his goods purchased are Zero rated and what percentage are standard rated in order to apply these percentages to his sales turnover figures to come up with his standard rated sales and zero rated sales.
Question: The problem I am having is that his invoices from Poland do not state the value of zero rated and standard rated items in a VAT breakdown. as you would imagine, £100k in goods is several thousand items and it is very difficult and time consuming to 1-translate items so you can figure out what they are and 2-calculate total zero rated and total standard rated
Does anyone have any experience dealing with this? or any possible solutions?
I think Sheila is right about getting a specialist to answer this. My guess would be that you should not be using the scheme as it does not seem appropriate. It may be that a sophisticated 'point of sale' system is needed or a less sophisticated one where the sales person presses a different button on the till for zero rated sales and standard rated sales. This would basically mean calculating vat in the normal way.
