Vat - What do I have to do and when do I pay?

When you are vat registered you will have an obligation to charge vat on your sales and then pay and submit vat at periodic intervals to HMRC.

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Only a vat registered business can issue invoices with vat on them and these invoices must contain the following information:

  • Unique sequential number

  • Business name and address

  • Your vat number

  • The date of supply for the vat invoice

  • Customers name and trading address

  • Description of what was sold

  • Amount sold shown as Net, Vat and Gross amounts.

  • Rate of vat charged

  • Quantity sold

  • Rate of item sold.


Keep records

You will have to keep adequate records of the transactions your business makes. This will mean copies of the invoices for what you sell and copies of the receipts/invoices for what you buy to use in your business. If you are involved in import and export of goods you will have to keep the paperwork relating to these movements of goods.

You must also keep general business records such as bank and credit card statements, cheque books and till rolls if you use them.

If you make any errors on your vat return you will need to inform HMRC as soon as you are aware of them, this can be done using the form VAT652. You may have to pay interest on errors that you make on your vat return.

You will need to submit your vat return to HMRC at periodic intervals and pay the amount due, this will be show in box number five on your vat return. You will normally need to pay your vat one month and seven days after the end of the vat return period. There may be variations to this depending on the vat scheme you are using.

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