Business Matters

Paper VAT returns deadline

Businesses with a VAT exclusive turnover of under £100,000 that registered for VAT before 1 April 2010 will be required to file their VAT Returns online and make electronic payments for periods beginning after 31 March 2012.

However for the second time in as many months HMRC will be out of action on the critical days of early April due to an upgrade to IT systems and so you should register early to make sure there are no problems with the registration process.

 

There are less than 60 days to go before VAT becomes fully online for everyone!

 

 

Latest: HMRC targets Home Improvements traders

HMRC has announced the focus of its campaigns to be implemented later this year.

 

The latest targets for HMRC activity are:

 

Home improvement trades. This will build on campaigns aimed at plumbers and electricians. Hundreds of thousands of tradespeople in construction and building work such as roofing, window fitting, bricklaying, carpentry and joinery will be affected. Missing returns. This campaign will initially focus on those who fail to complete tax returns and who are liable to pay tax at the highest rates. Overall this will contribute to the wider HMRC activity tackling failure to complete tax returns. Direct selling. This will target customers who ought to be paying tax on income they earn from buying and selling goods directly to others, or from the commission on these sales.

 

Following the success of previous campaigns which utilised HMRC’s ‘Connect’ system to analyse and identify potential links and targets, HMRC has advised that it will use new technology to trawl the internet for information about specific, targeted people and businesses. This will also include cross-referencing returns received with other information held to ‘build a picture’ of where they can identify taxpayers with missing returns.

 

As seen in the Plumbers Tax Safe Plan, HMRC will target those that do not come forward with the full force of its powers including higher penalties and criminal prosecution. The Plumbers Tax Safe Plan has so far raised nearly £4million and seen 10 plumbers arrested with HMRC planning more arrests in the future.