A Mind Lost

I currently have a VAT Assurance Officer from Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs sitting in an office down the corridor trawling through our import and export documentation to make sure that we are carrying out our VAT obligations correctly.

This is not a full blown audit but if they find anything amiss, it soon will be. We’re pretty good with our documentation procedures but there’s so much paperwork associated with importing and exporting, there are bound to be documents missing from some files. Unfortunately, you’re not allowed to be human in business and a mistake will be seen as attempted fraud if you get an inspector with a god complex!

Fingers crossed……

Update: Everything went reasonably OK.  We were picked up on a documentation shortage in that we do not have a copy of our customs entry for each import/export transaction.  This should be provided by the freight agent and will be from now on.  If your freight agent isn’t giving you a copy of your customs entry, form C88 or SAD document, you are probably in breach of your documentary requirements.  There’s no penalty this time but it will be recorded for next time!