VAT registration: Pls help!

Cardinal-Red

They may be asking for your VAT registration number because if it's a USA company, the decision to charge VAT or not on the invoice might depend on you being VAT registered in the UK.

Not a reason to register of itself, but am just putting it out there that there might be a good commercial reason for them asking.

JasonLVC

The VAT registration was £73k until last week, when the Budget announced it rising to £77k.

A USA based company may not be interested in whether a UK entity is registered for VAT or not, but if the USA company also has UK branches then this may change the VAT treatment under place of supply rules, depending upon what the OP is selling/doing.

As the other psoters have noted, the company may simply be asking for your VAT number as a matter of routine, rather than actually demanding you are VAT registered.

If your main trade is business 2 business (ie, sales to other traders, not retail customers) then registering for VAT may be worthwhile despite the hassle of the paperwork, but as a fledgling business registering for VAt straight away may not be the biggest priority.

The HMRC form does ask for your business bank details but you can still get a VAT number without putting bank details on the form (just note that "you are awaiting confirmation frm the bank") as HMRC realise banks are taking much longer to issue bank numbers as banks do more checks nowadays. The only downside of getting a VAT number without bank details is that if you want to claim a refund of VAT, HMRC will be unable to refund you until you supply the bank details.

anamenottaken

And remember that you should register for VAT if you have a reasonable belief that your turnover is going to reach the registration threshold. You don't wait until it actually does.

Cardinal-Red

anamenottaken wrote: »

And remember that you should register for VAT if you have a reasonable belief that your turnover is going to reach the registration threshold. You don't wait until it actually does.

This isn't strictly true.
This only applies if you have a reasonable belief that your turnover will breach the threshold in the next thirty days alone, i.e. you have over £73,000 of expected income in the next month by itself, with no regard for what has gone before.

If you're looking at your income under the twelve month test you don't need to register until you actually breach the threshold, and then you have at least 30 days to notify HMRC.