We provide bespoke VAT consultancy and compliance services to a growing list of clients across a wide range of business sectors. We also provide VAT advice and support to an ever-increasing number of independent accountancy practices.
We provide bespoke VAT consultancy and compliance services to a growing list of clients across a wide range of business sectors. We also provide VAT advice and support to an ever-increasing number of independent accountancy practices.
VAT is one of the most complex and fast-moving areas of taxation and is potentially a significant area of risk in your business. An HMRC VAT inspection can be extremely disruptive and stressful – and VAT errors can be extremely costly to rectify.
Our promise is to provide top quality VAT advice that is technically sound, jargon-free, commercially focused, and, value for money. Our mission is to help our clients pay “the right tax at the right time” – no less, no more.
If you need advice with:
– you have come to the right place.
Prevention is better than cure. We can
Our core values are: honesty & integrity.
All of our work is carried out or reviewed by our founding director, Rhona Graham.
Rhona is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Taxation and is a former VAT inspector.
Veritas VAT Consultants Ltd was founded in 2011 and is led by Rhona Graham CTA (Fellow).
Rhona has worked in VAT since the late 1980s. She started her career in HM Customs and Excise (now HMRC) then spent 20 years in senior VAT roles with a number of leading UK and international accountancy practices. Rhona is a graduate of the University of Aberdeen and became a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Taxation in 1996.
We serve clients across the UK: from the North of Scotland to the West Country. We also work with a number of overseas clients helping them deal with their UK VAT obligations. Through our extensive network of global contacts we can also support clients who need advice on VAT or GST issues in all major jurisdictions.
We offer a highly regarded ‘helpline’ service for independent accountancy practices. Many accountancy firms do not have (and don’t need) a dedicated in-house VAT resource. Our helpline service ensures that those firms (and their clients) can obtain affordable access to top-quality VAT expertise as and when required.
The service operates on a subscription basis for a modest annual fee and offers unlimited access and support with day-to-day VAT queries. Subscribers also receive a highly detailed monthly VAT update – a fantastic resource which helps our clients and their teams to develop their knowledge and awareness of VAT issues.
We can also tailor our helpline offering to clients in other sectors. This service is used successfully by a number of our larger clients.
Many of our clients seek our advice because they want assurance that their VAT policies, processes and procedures are fully compliant with HMRC requirements. To meet this need, we have developed our “5-star VAT review” process. These reviews consider the VAT implications of:
At the end of the review process we produce a ‘traffic light’ report of action points ranked in order of urgency/importance. The aim of the VAT healthcheck review is to ensure that your organisation gets “VAT-fit”. It enables you to identify any VAT risk areas (or opportunities for savings/efficiencies) and to develop a sensible strategy for tackling these.
Property and construction is one of the most complex and difficult areas of the UK VAT regime. The rules are extremely complicated – and affect what are very often high-value and/or ‘one-off’ transactions. This is a major VAT risk area and one where we are regularly asked to advise.
If you are involved in a property transaction and are:
property there may very well be VAT issues you need to deal with. We can work with you, your accountant, solicitor or other professional advisers to ensure that these issues are identified and dealt with as effectively as possible.
We are increasingly asked to advise on international VAT issues. We act for a number of non-UK clients who need assistance and support in meeting their UK VAT obligations. We also support a growing number of UK clients who need to comply with VAT/GST requirements in other jurisdictions.
Typical issues we advise on include:
Our clients include: a major UK retailer with VAT registrations in several EU member states, Ebay and Amazon sellers, a number of overseas headquartered organisations in the energy, defence and entertainment sectors who require a UK VAT registration.
We are often asked to provide advice and support to clients who are in dispute with HMRC. We regularly achieve positive (and on occasion spectacular) results in these cases.
We can help with:
VAT is a major risk area (and often represents a significant bottom-line cost) for many charitable and not-for-profit organisations. We support many such organisations and have a wealth of experience in this area.
Our clients include: Housing Associations, Academy schools, Arts organisations, Health and welfare organisations, Independent charities and CICs.
We do not sell VAT ‘schemes’ and take a ‘low risk’ approach to VAT planning – but are still often able to achieve significant VAT savings and efficiencies for these organisations.
A growing independent accountancy practice with 3 principals and 20 staff needed support with an increasing number of VAT queries and special projects
The firm signed up to our annual helpline subscription package.
Their team now has access to a dedicated VAT resource. They get answers to all of their day to day VAT questions for a modest annual fee and have the assurance that additional help is on hand if and when they need it.
All team members also receive a detailed monthly update of recent VAT developments – a fantastic resource which gives them the opportunity to develop a greater awareness of VAT issues and add to their skill set.
A major high-street retailer needed an additional VAT resource to support their existing in-house tax team.
We worked closely with the in-house tax manager to provide additional support on a variety of VAT issues and special projects.
We continue to act as a ‘sounding board’ and provide a second opinion/sense check on unusual VAT issues that arise within the business.
Our skills enhance and complement those of the in-house tax team – without the business having to make a major, long-term investment in additional staff.
A growing owner-managed business identified a need to improve and upgrade its VAT compliance processes and procedures.
We worked with the business and their external accountants to review the current VAT position. We then produced a ‘traffic light’ report setting out our recommendations (ranked in order of urgency/importance) along with a detailed action plan to address these.
We continue to work with the client in conjunction with their accountants to ensure that material VAT issues are identified and addressed as an integral part of the business’s overall financial strategy.
Following a routine VAT inspection, our client received a very large and unexpected VAT assessment.
We reviewed the assessment and concluded that HMRC’s analysis of the position was flawed.
We often resolve such cases by means of HMRC’s formal reconsideration procedures – or by the statutory appeals process (Tax Tribunal).
In this case, however, the case was suitable for ADR (HMRC’s Alternative Dispute Resolution process).
This was an extremely cost-effective route and resulted in an assessment of over £500,000 being reduced to less than £10,000.
A client wished to buy a commercial property partly for use as their own trading premises and partly to sublet to a tenant.
The seller was uncertain about the VAT status of the property and did not know whether VAT would need to be charged on the sale.
We worked closely with the buyer, seller and their respective legal advisers. We were able to come up with a solution that:
We act as retained VAT advisers in connection with a large, long-term regeneration project. The project is extremely complex and involves multiple entities. There are many stakeholders all with different needs and expectations.
VAT is a key consideration as it represents a major risk area while also presenting opportunities for effective cashflow management and, in some instances, absolute savings.
We operate as an integral part of the advisory teams and work closely with the other legal and financial advisers as well as the client’s in-house team.
Our first task was to develop an overall VAT Strategy Report. This highlighted the main VAT pressure points which will arise over the life of the project and allowed us to put in place a detailed action plan and timeline to address these as the project progresses.
This will help to ensure that VAT issues remain high on the agenda and that any potential problem areas can be identified and managed effectively.
We were asked to determine whether a client’s services were market research (20% VAT) or financial intermediary services (exempt – no VAT).
We were able to obtain a ruling from HMRC which confirmed that the services qualified for VAT exemption.
We were then able to use this ruling to prepare a retrospective claim of VAT overpaid over the previous four years.
Our client received a six-figure VAT refund.
Our client is a charitable organisation with a subsidiary trading company that operates a bar and restaurant. They receive income from a variety of sources. Some of this is standard rated (20% VAT), some is non-business/outside the scope of VAT.
The client needs to be able to:
We carried out an initial review to confirm the correct VAT liability of each source of income.
We then designed a VAT recovery methodology which allows the client to demonstrate that its approach to reclaiming VAT on costs is ‘fair and reasonable’.
We continue to work with this client by updating our report and the recovery methodology as the organisation grows and new funding sources come on stream.