British Gas Lite

barbuda

Hi, been with British Gas Lite for gas and elec for 9 months, suddenly they are adding vat at 20% and no circumstances have changed so it should still be 5%.
Had to "chat' for an hour to start an investigation ho hum....
Could be worth checking your bills, if they have almost a million  clients, I can't imagine I am the only one affected?

Devongardener

It would help if you could post a redacted bill showing the VAT charged,  just to confirm that the 20% rate is being applied to energy costs and not some other service you have.

Grizzlebeard

Only way this makes any sense is if BG have suddenly mysteriously morphed you from a domestic tariff to a business tariff. Their accounting software wouldn't allow manipulation of the  VAT rate otherwise.

(Devongardners observation still pertinent of couse.)

barbuda

Hi,
I have attached the bill below;
Although the bill says Aug to Sept it is incorrect (like most things BGasLite) it is really a carry over from April to Sept, because BGasLite have been unable to produce a correct invoice for 6 months.
A total of  2300kw/h in 6 months has been used which is well below the 5% vat threshold for a business.
Then need to add standing charges, and deduct £300 goodwill payments for c##k ups.

So the calc is almost right apart from when we switched to a smart meter and the fitter added 100kw/h to the reading, luckily we had before and after photos and that is being sorted currently.

Sorry for all the waffle, but the incorrect invoice needed explaining..... the point of my original post was that BGLite are charging 20% vat when they shouldn't be, and as they have around 1million customers, then the odds of me being the only one affected are a bit slim..

Mister_G

Isn't BG Lite a business tariff?

barbuda

Yes and the vat on a low usage business account is 5%, mine is a low usage business account.

Grizzlebeard

Mister_G said:

Isn't BG Lite a business tariff?

Ahh.. Thanks Mister G.

Like I said earlier. They switched you to a Business Tariff.

There's no such thing as a 5% VAT business tariff.

High or low useage is neither here nor there for a business tariff.

matt_drummer

Grizzlebeard said:

There's no such thing as a 5% VAT business tariff.

There is actually.

Either 5% or standard rate is allowed.

My business tariff from EDF has VAT applied @5%

In my 37 years as an accountant I have seen many examples of both.

It makes no difference to us, EDF or HMRC if we are charged VAT at 5% or 20% as EDF pay it to HMRC and we claim it back from HMRC.

HMRC don't benefit from VAT charged to most VAT registered businesses, VAT is a tax on consumers.