Business News
Moving VAT online
For businesses that are VAT registered and turning over less than £100,000 per year, the online age will truly arrive from April 2012 as plans proposed by HMRC go through.
For now, VAT returns can be filed online or manually – the choice is yours – but a proposal has been put through for the aforementioned businesses to become online only, and for this to be mandatory. Larger businesses and new VAT registrations have been doing this since 2010, while the rest have had the paper option, but it is this that HMRC want to eradicate in order to bring everyone into line with the same level of compliance across the board.
Online registration for VAT should be coming into action October 2012, which pledges to make registration a much easier process, by being quicker and more cost effective. In a consultation document produced by HMRC, removing the paper elements to registration, filing and data management by March 2012 is a logical and efficient move and will be welcomed by most. The move looks to set quicker solutions such as 72 hour online registration processing where paper takes 3 to 6 weeks, and data will be more quickly and readily available to those who need it.
Those out in rural areas, and older, more traditional business owners may find the move tricky, with a lack of decent broadband in some areas and learning new processes for some, and so those users need to be aware of what is to come in the coming year.
Accountants such as Suretax file returns online for many of our clients, which has added to the cost of their accountancy fees and is a compulsory act of business. HMRC does not seem to have considered this, as there has been no incentive set for the introduction of online VAT filing, where there was rolled out for PAYE.
The consultation closes on the 31 October 2011.
