Deregistering for VAT

Nink

I have a small business/limited company and am currently trying to close it down. My accountant has prepared the final accounts and I must deregister for VAT so that I can close the company down. However, the form states I must give a date when the company ceased to trade.
The small print says: You will normally be deregistered from the date you ceased to make taxable supplies, see Notice 700/11, ‘Cancelling your registration’

I have not been trading for many, many months now and I am confused as to the date I should give on the form. Is it the date I last received payment from a client or the date I took out my last dividend? Or something totally different? I am totally lost with what I should put here.

I am also concerned that I will be fined as I have heard that there are specific times in which things should be filed. I would normally ask my accountant to do everything for me but if I so much as ask for help, he charges me for the email and I cannot afford to keep paying him.

Any help gratefully received!

vivatifosi

I have deregistered myself this year, albeit on a trading company. I too had a couple of questions and found the answers by phoning the VAT office, they were hugely helpful.

Nink

Thanks! I will call today and ask...

00ec25

Nink wrote: »

pplies, see Notice 700/11, ‘Cancelling your registration’

I have not been trading for many, many months now and I am confused as to the date I should give on the form. Is it the date I last received payment from a client or the date I took out my last dividend? Or something totally different? I am totally lost with what I should put here.

use a date which falls after the date of the last sale invoice you raised or the date of the last purchase invoice you will recover VAT on. Whichever of the two date is the later, obviously you should not date it after the company itself has closed. So you select any date between those start and end points, it does not really matter which exact date you choose, as the issue is whether there are any transactions upon which VAT is due that occur after the de-registration date, the key therefore is to ensure there are none.

Nink wrote: »

I am also concerned that I will be fined as I have heard that there are specific times in which things should be filed.!

worry not, that mainly applies to people who de-register and then carry on trading and at a point in time they then go back over the compulsory registration threshold and "forget" to re-register

Nink

Thank-you! That has cleared things up tremendously. There's nothing like losing out on a whole night's sleep for fear of the wrath of HMRC... Tonight, I will sleep like a baby.