UK Spring Budget 2017 – VAT Implications

The UK Chancellor delivered his Spring Budget yesterday.  Affecting online sellers are the following:

UK Established Companies

• VAT Registration and deregistration thresholds – From 1 April 2017 the VAT registration threshold will increase from £83,000 to £85,000 and the deregistration threshold from £81,000 to £83,000.   This means, from April 1st 2017, if you are a UK established business you will not have to VAT register until your turnover reaches £85,000 in a rolling 12 month period.

Overseas Sellers UK VAT Fraud Counter-Measures

• ‘Split Payment’ model – In the next step in tackling the non-payment of VAT by some overseas traders selling goods online to UK consumers and building on the measures introduced in Budget 2016, the government will shortly publish a call for evidence on the case for a new VAT collection mechanism for online sales. This would harness technology to allow VAT to be extracted directly by the Exchequer from online transactions at the point of purchase.