VAT recovery and compliance services

Introduction

Because the NHS is subject to VAT penalties and interest from April 2011, ensuring correct VAT recovery and compliance on a timely basis has never been more important.

Our services are designed to maximise VAT recovery on a regular basis, and to help minimise any VAT liabilities which could result in penalties.  We appreciate that in-house VAT knowledge and expertise varies between different NHS organisations, so our VAT recovery and compliance services are flexible and tailored to the needs of our clients. 

You can choose to engage us on a one-off assignment, or benefit from a comprehensive range of services which include:

Expenditure and income VAT reviews

We can carry out detailed reviews of expenditure (accounts payable) and income (debtors and cash sales) to identify under/over claimed VAT and under/over declared VAT relating to the contracted-out services provisions and your non-NHS business income.

Our review processes involve a physical examination of invoices and supporting documentation in order to maximise recovery and compliance.

Capital planning

We take a strategic approach to reviewing capital schemes in order to gain a full understanding of the nature and use of each scheme and to ensure that all information is available in order to maximise VAT recovery.

We can review schemes at the outset (pro-actively) or at the end of the scheme (retrospectively) depending upon your requirements.

Business activities and partial exemption

We recognise that NHS organisations differ operationally from one another, so a ‘tailored’ business/non-business and partial exemption method is required in order to maximise input tax recovery and minimise the impact of partial exemption.

Charitable funds VAT relief

VAT incurred on most equipment is a cost to the NHS that cannot usually be recovered.  The supplies of certain goods either hired or purchased by or for an NHS body can however be zero-rated provided they are paid for wholly from charitable or voluntary contributions and meet other conditions.

We can review your certification process and purchases made from charitable funds to ensure that all available VAT relief has been gained.

Where appropriate, we can seek refunds from suppliers by way of credit notes where we believe VAT has been charged incorrectly and provide the relevant charitable expenditure staff with up-to-date guidance and ongoing support to enable all future relief to be maximised.