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This factsheet explains the situations where the VAT bad debt relief applies.
It is quite possible within the VAT system for a business to be in the position of having to pay over VAT to HMRC while not having received payment from their customer.
Bad debt relief allows businesses, that have made supplies on which they have accounted for and paid VAT but for which they have not received payment, to claim a refund of the VAT by reference to the outstanding amount.
In order to make a claim a business must satisfy the following conditions:
A claim is made by entering the appropriate amount in Box 4 of the VAT return for the period in which entitlement to the claim arises (or any permissible later period).
Businesses making bad debt relief claims must keep records for four years from the date of the claim to show:
Where a customer has not paid a supplier within six months of the date of the supply or, if later, the date payment is due, VAT previously claimed as input tax, must be repaid. This puts a burden on all VAT registered traders to monitor their transactions to anticipate whether they need to reverse any input tax recovered on goods received from suppliers.
23 Mar 2022
Tax expert, Debbie Franklin, provides a summary of the announcements by Rishi Sunak on Wednesday 23 March 2022.