September 4, 2007

VAT problems cause government headache

The conservative shadow enterprise, competition and deregulation minister, Mark Prisk, has begun to apply persuasive on the government regarding the delays in VAT registration times, and with a title that long, he should know!

The problem lies with the length of time that it takes for a new business to become VAT registered, this is because of the checks that they do now to prevent VAT fraud which had become a serious problem costing billions of pounds.

But this does not help new businesses that are unable to invoice their customers because these payments do not go through the computer systems in place and therefore slows everything up. But it is not just that, if a business plans to export product, this type of business will also require a VAT number in order to carry out the trade.

So this is the problem that is facing Stephen Timms the small business minister over the next couple of weeks.

Source [Telegraph]