Invoicing Help

craggle87

We carried out services in September for a company and they have called asking for the invoices, it appears the accountant at the time didn't produce any.

I'm going to write them now, can the invoices be dated for april? and should VAT be shown as 15% or 17.5%?

Hope someone can help.

Thank you

sdv

craggle87 wrote: »

We carried out services in September for a company and they have called asking for the invoices, it appears the accountant at the time didn't produce any.

I'm going to write them now, can the invoices be dated for april? and should VAT be shown as 15% or 17.5%?

Hope someone can help.

Thank you

This is a question of VAT tax point

there a 3 conditions for for assessing the tax point

1 The tax point is at the date of delivery of goods/dervices, OR
2 the date of invoice if the invoice is issued within 14 days of goods/services delivered, OR
3 The date of payment for goods/services, if payment received before the delivery of goods/services.

From what you say the tax point is in September when VAT was 15%

You will have a problem if you issue the invoice now at 15%. The vat at 15% should have been accounted and paid in the period the tax point falls in. If you have not, then there is an error in vat returns declaration. If the error is more then £2000, you will have to declare this error separately to HMRC and there will be a penaly and interest charges payable to HMRC. If the error is less then £2000 the you can adjust the input/out put tax in the current vat returns.

Unless your customer has a problem with the chargable vat rate, I would issue an invoice dated today and charge vat at 17.5%. If an invoice is issued at 15% NOW you are clearly sending a message to investiage this invoice's tax point.

craggle87

Great information thank you. The invoice is under £2000 so we are going to go ahead and issue the invoice at 17.5% and adjust in the cuurent VAT return.

I have a feeling more cases of this will pop up so the HMRC should be on stand by.

Thanks again

blobbyh

I'd do exactly as SDV says, raise the invoice now at 17.5% vat. It may well be that your customer has been accruing for this anyway so doing anything else would create complications for both yourself and them.