Are PPC's evading paying VAT on collection costs resulting in lost £'000's to HMRC?

Castle

Please, please HMRC, sit up and take notice and start going after these cowboys.

Based on this article from July 2021 they probably already are:-
Parking News issue 408 (cpl.co.uk)

Castle

hullensien said:

“Our client will not be issuing you a VAT invoice due to the HMRC Internal Manual “VAT Supply and Consideration” at VATSC05840 which states:
 “Where a car park operator makes an offer of parking under clear terms and conditions, setting punitive fines for their breach, the fines constitute penalties for breaching the contract, rather than additional consideration for using the facilities. Consequently, they are outside the scope of VAT.”

are they allowed to use the words “fines” and “penalties”

The wording is taken straight from the HM Revenue and Customs own website!

ihatetrump

Castle said:

Please, please HMRC, sit up and take notice and start going after these cowboys.

Based on this article from July 2021 they probably already are:-
Parking News issue 408 (cpl.co.uk)

The article was written by Keith Miller - who has clearly advised the cowboys back in 2019:

https://www.britishparking.co.uk/write/Documents/Events/AOS%20Conference/Keith_Miller_Legally_Speaking_VAT.pdf

Hopefully the more noise he makes, the more HMRC may sit up and take notice.

ihatetrump

bargepole said:

ihatetrump said:

Please, please HMRC, sit up and take notice and start going after these cowboys.

You may be waiting for some time.

I happen to know of a business operation, not far from me, where the foreign owner employs illegal immigrants, pays them below minimum wage with cash in brown envelopes, and supplies them with fake passports for a fee.

All of this has been reported to HMRC, and the Border Agency, a couple of years ago. Action taken so far? None.

Yep, that sounds like HMRC. Maybe it needs some more whistleblowers - a good place to start is here:

https://www.tax.service.gov.uk/shortforms/form/TEH_IRF

As open or anonymous as you may want it to be.

Brings to memory the famous quote from the Queen of Mean, Leona Helmsley: "We don't pay taxes; only the little people pay taxes" Well I'm a little person and it's about time others paid their share also. 

Castle

ihatetrump said:

Castle said:

Please, please HMRC, sit up and take notice and start going after these cowboys.

Based on this article from July 2021 they probably already are:-
Parking News issue 408 (cpl.co.uk)

The article was written by Keith Miller - who has clearly advised the cowboys back in 2019:

https://www.britishparking.co.uk/write/Documents/Events/AOS%20Conference/Keith_Miller_Legally_Speaking_VAT.pdf

Hopefully the more noise he makes, the more HMRC may sit up and take notice.

Thanks; I have not seen that document.

Pay & display should be treated differently because the PPC is not the principal in 99% of cases because it's the landowner's VAT number which has to be displayed; and of course they will have to produce a VAT invoice on request to a "taxable person" to cover the period of parking.

(What will be interesting when the new Code is brought in is when the unpaid Tariff is higher than the parking charge, because the Tariff is subject to VAT.)

D_P_Dance

Why bot inform the Daily  Mail, and your MP

ihatetrump

Here's a couple of his most recent articles:

https://www.etctax.co.uk/blog-news/vat-and-parking-brief-history/
https://www.etctax.co.uk/blog-news/vat-parking-consequences-hmrcs-policy-changes/

ihatetrump

Despite my requests for VAT invoices or explanations otherwise, the PPC and their legal representative are now just blanking me.

Knowing that the £110 of costs (PPC £60 & Legal £50) are both subject to VAT (and therefore the total amounts should be £91.67 + £18.33 VAT) , they should be able to produce a VAT invoice. Their reluctance to do so, tells me they're most likely pocketing the VAT. Time to blow the whistle on this scam (which is really tax evasion - which comes with more severe penalties).

The perfect opportunity also to disclose that this particular PPC also gets all its' revenue from (VAT Exempt) PCN's and should therefore have a large proportion (maybe all) of its' VAT reclaims disallowed. My moneysaving mission is to cost them substantially more than they cost me 

ihatetrump

So as expected, the PPC and their legal cowboys have totally blanked me with my request for a VAT invoice which appears to further confirm that either one or both of them are failing to account for (and pay to HMRC) VAT on the proportion of their extortion payment that relates to debt recovery costs.

They're now into their last few days before I go down the HMRC whistleblowing route - I suspect that there are many PPC's along with their legal representatives who are adopting the same scam (in addition to the PCN scam itself) and fraudulently  evading paying VAT.

Any other forum members who have evidence (or a strong suspicion) that a PPC or their legal representative is pocketing VAT on the collection element of an overall PCN settlement or court award should seriously consider using the HMRC whistleblowing form - easy to fill out and can be totally anonymous if you wish.

Amazingly HMRC does pay rewards to whistleblowers where they feel it is justified and where the fraudster is brought to justice. They paid out nearly £400k in the last reporting year - sadly not as much as the US tax authorities (the IRS) who paid out $120Million in 2019! 

patient_dream

They will all be VAT registered otherwise the could not reclaim back on purchases etc.

My understanding is that as they are registered, they must provide a VAT receipt which will enable the third pary to reclaim the amount if they are registered

Refusing to provide a receipt does certainly look like evasiom