In May of this year I had a VAT inspection of my books, nothing unusual in that you might say apart from the fact it was the first one in ten years.
Very nice lady spent 4-5hrs going through everything including my diaries dating back 10 years.
She went away and I did not think to much about it, until I received the assessment. Apparantly I owed them £12600
Now I know, as there always is, something I'd got wrong or over looked and I was quite prepared to have to pay something but this was a major kick in the nuts.
There were large areas of underpayments on my part for which I could not understand.I queried this and the letter I got back was not only very petty as they brought up trips my wife had made in the vehicle which did not in their opinion come under business use.( one was when my son left his football kit at home and she ran it up to him :
).Other parts of the letter threatened interest and fines if not settled and other crap with which they were trying to frighten me with ,to make me cough up.So much for the nice lady act.
This only enraged me
so I immediately went to appeal and got my book keeper to look into all aspects of her assessment, very quickly discrepencies in
HER calculations cropped up, I then contacted the FSB and put them on standby should I need them.
Today my book keeper and I went to a meeting at customs and excise with her and her boss.My book keeper didn't hang about he went straight in and asked her to explain one quarter in which I apparantly underpaid by £4800 and how she arrived at this figure as my total sales would have had to have been £48000 for that quarter which they clearly were not (if only
).
Her boss looked perplexed and asked her to explain, oh the joy, as I watched as this woman started to flush and squirm in her chair as she flicked through paper work that meant nothing and come to the conclusion that in fact the under payment amounted to £13.00
.She was only £4787 out.
As it went on it became clear there were several errors which basically halved the bill at a stroke and we have to make further checks as and when the new assessment comes in.
Their passing shot was I will still have to pay interest charges on the overdue amount
but this should be negligable.
Moral is check every thing don't take them at their word, if you think its wrong appeal, how many thousands pay up with out a word it must make 100's millions over the years for the treasury. I am sure I must have done in the past with lesser amounts.