VAT Guidance

When the Council supplies goods or services for any kind of payment (i.e. money or some form of barter or payment in kind) it is obliged by law to apply the correct VAT treatment.

Any chargeable VAT must be coded to the correct VAT code so that it can be separately accounted for, and paid over to Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC). If VAT is not charged correctly, the service concerned will eventually have to meet the cost of the VAT, since correct payments will still have to be made to HMRC. If incorrect treatment has been applied over a long period of time, the cost can become significant. In addition to this the Council can be fined and charged interest on these incorrect payments. It is therefore crucial that the Council's VAT team is contacted as soon as possible if you have any queries in relation to VAT, when you are considering new charges, or where you think the wrong VAT treatment may have been applied.

The Council does make a number of supplies on which VAT should be charged, and the Council's VAT team have been working on improvements to internal VAT guidance to assist you in ensuring the correct treatment is applied. If you have any concerns, advice should always be sought from the Council’s VAT team, particularly during the early planning stages of charging arrangements. Even if VAT isn't chargeable it's important that the correct VAT status is applied to each transaction (these could be zero-rated, exempt or outside the scope of VAT).

VAT rules are complex and care must be taken to ensure the correct rules are applied since errors will inevitably result in costs having to be borne by the Council. Services must refer to the VAT guidance published on The HUB if they are unsure of the correct VAT treatment. It is intended that further guidance will be published when it is available throughout so please refer to these pages regularly.

All queries should be via email to the VAT mailbox in the first instance; simply type 'VAT' in the Outlook address field - the full address is vat@eastdunbarton.gov.uk.

Urgent matters should be directed to the Accountant for your service; alternatively one of the Accountants in the VAT team in Corporate Finance listed below can be contacted on MS Teams or by phone on the following numbers:

Grace Tse, Accountant, Tel: 601 8006
Julie Hopper, Accountant, Tel: 601 3468
Margaret McCluskey, Accountant, Tel: 601 4726
Suzie Knox, Accountant, Tel: 601 4702