VAT Advisory Services

VAT is a transaction tax and needs to be considered before the transaction takes place if the best commercial outcome is to be achieved.  With the introduction of penalties for the NHS from April 2011 and a 20% standard VAT from January 2011, it has never been more important to take timely VAT advice when considering business cases involving high value transactions.

Very often large VAT savings and refunds can result from small changes in the way an NHS body procures certain goods and services.

As well as the ‘core’ NHS VAT review services (e.g. contracted-out services reviews), CRS VAT Consulting has the expertise to provide VAT advisory services and invests the time to help unlock additional VAT savings for our NHS clients.  We do not advocate confrontational policies or contrived transactions which can be viewed as VAT avoidance.  However, we equally do not believe it appropriate to take the approach that results in the greatest payment of VAT unnecessarily.

Examples of VAT advisory services include:

• advising on the VAT treatment of the purchase of a building to ensure the Trust didn't have an unexpected VAT liability

• advising on the VAT treatment of the sale of hospital land to a housing developer and arrangements with the local authority to ensure all potential VAT costs are mitigated and VAT savings achieved

• advising on the restructuring of contracts to identify stand-alone eligible services, resulting in increased VAT recovery

• advising on the transactions and constituent parts of PFI contracts to ensure that all potential VAT savings are achieved

• advising on the correct contract structure of managed service contracts, resulting in full VAT recovery.  An example is the hire of medical equipment (such as blood analysers) and other associated items where the supply of the goods is incidental to a service with a high level of labour and technical support.