VAT - Missing Trader

[Big Blue Plymouth]

Normally have a VAT return due at end of July & it all the paperwork gets done by my accountant & all I do is go online and pay when I get the notification.

This month I got nothing so I emailed my accountant & he has checked on the VAT portal & it appears my ltd doesn't have a return due to be submitted & he thinks it's because HMRC has my ltd down as a "missing trader". Something to do with VAT fraud, apparently.

Anyone come across this? I've spoken with my accountant but he tells me HMRC are being particularly nebulous. I'm a tad worried

[Maslins]

We see this quite a lot, nothing to be worried about.

Typical situation is:
- client moves address. They perhaps tell multiple places of the move, but the VAT office isn't correctly informed.
- VAT office send a letter to old address. Whoever's there now sends it back to them.
- VAT office then mark you as a missing trader, on the basis they don't know where you are (often it wouldn't take too much effort to find you, but they don't bother).
- this means your VAT account is frozen, so no further VAT returns will be expected by HMRC until it's rectified.

Give HMRC's VAT dept a call. After going through security, they'll likely see you're marked as a missing trader, and once any possible address issues have been updated, they can hopefully reactivate your VAT account.

One further thing that's annoying, is that for whatever reason they never seem to want you to submit the missing VAT quarter data as a quarterly return, so instead they'll ask you to complete a 6 month (or longer depending upon how long you've been "missing") VAT return based on your next normal quarter end date. This is a bit annoying as if you use something like FreeAgent it won't let you change it to be a 6 month quarter, so you/your accountant will need to put a reminder in your calendar to ensure when the next VAT period ends that you collate together numbers from 2+ different quarters.

[Big Blue Plymouth]

We see this quite a lot, nothing to be worried about.

Typical situation is:
- client moves address. They perhaps tell multiple places of the move, but the VAT office isn't correctly informed.
- VAT office send a letter to old address. Whoever's there now sends it back to them.
- VAT office then mark you as a missing trader, on the basis they don't know where you are (often it wouldn't take too much effort to find you, but they don't bother).
- this means your VAT account is frozen, so no further VAT returns will be expected by HMRC until it's rectified.

Give HMRC's VAT dept a call. After going through security, they'll likely see you're marked as a missing trader, and once any possible address issues have been updated, they can hopefully reactivate your VAT account.

One further thing that's annoying, is that for whatever reason they never seem to want you to submit the missing VAT quarter data as a quarterly return, so instead they'll ask you to complete a 6 month (or longer depending upon how long you've been "missing") VAT return based on your next normal quarter end date. This is a bit annoying as if you use something like FreeAgent it won't let you change it to be a 6 month quarter, so you/your accountant will need to put a reminder in your calendar to ensure when the next VAT period ends that you collate together numbers from 2+ different quarters.

Excellent, thanks. Yep, I have moved house in the last 6 months & my Royal Mail redirect service has now run out.

[TheCyclingProgrammer]

When you update your address with HMRC unfortunately you need to do it in several places, there is no one unified record.

To submit a change of VAT registration details online you need to be registered with that service. If you aren't already they will need to send you an auth code in the post...to your old address!

Ring them but you may have to submit a paper form by post to change your VAT account address.