I am self employed and have company in which I provide visa for British passport holders through forign consulates and embassies in UK, in general we are called visa services which you can find many company like us in yellow pages and internet.
The question is we are zero rated, but recently the VAT man rejected the idea that we are zero rated and he rejected the fact that what we do is providing a service rather than selling something, but the worst thing is he asked now for the back dated VAT for the total amount of our sale rather than our profit which really put us out of business as he is asking for nearly 40K.
The irony is we rejister voluntree and the officer who examined our services he catagorised us as zero rated, but six month later another guy called and he said no the othe guy made a mistake.
I need real help with this guys please. i welcome any suggestion as I don't know much about law and VAT and don't really know if this VAT guy taking an advantage because he made up his mind before he came to our office and he admitted before he left even though we told them there are many other visa agencies far far bigger than us who don't charge VAT at all.
hey guys I am a disabled guy and this is my first company I hate to go down like that and claim disability money again to live.
I would contact a VAT specialist, as this seems to be a specialised area. I would agree with Bill, in that services would be VATable.
One question is, why did you register voluntarily? Have you anything in writing from HMRC about being zero rated? Do you have a notices that suggest this?
Do you have an association that you belong to, to get advice from?
