VAT compliance and HMRC published guidelines.

VAT compliance

The guidlines focus on:
• Helping businesses make informed decisions and assess whether they have sufficient controls within their VAT processes.
• Helping businesses assess invoicing processes and associated risks as well as current reporting, outsourcing and employee expense processes.
• Considering the robustness of the systems used in the end-to-end VAT lifecycle.
• Assisting businesses in identifying risks and developing robust strategies to mitigate them, as well as creating supporting documentation to operationalise the controls in place.

The guidelines for VAT compliance form a key part of HMRC’s updated approach to VAT risk and controversy processes, reviewing controls, processes, systems and technical VAT issues simultaneously. These documents are not intended to be a “tick box” exercise in programmes such as a VAT audit but rather aimed at helping businesses establish a minimum framework to identify risks in their VAT systems and processes, and define relevant controls to mitigate those risks.

These guidelines for VAT compliance also demonstrate HMRC’s change in focus, encouraging businesses to adopt a full disclosure approach, where there is a growing expectation that all key processes and controls are not only documented but kept up to date.

Businesses should review the new Guidelines for Compliance to assess whether current recommendations align with their existing VAT risk and control framework.

A VAT consultant at our firm can be contacted on 0161 883 2120 should you wish to discuss any VAT matter. https://www.solvevat.co.uk/vat-consultant-expert-vat-advice/

The VAT compliance guidelines can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/help-with-vat-compliance-controls-guidelines-for-compliance-gfc8?mkt_tok=NTIwLVJYUC0wMDMAAAGVpKyxobFJkalgr7mndL1TgWZ6YfE7IJ8CjKB1jDEgeVtVLPs5LzzaTQqyMTGXz7N_RCCwfREWvX7hK-EfLRGqpqSLB-zCGAKfUhGGn-kl7cIzg2PQJw