Forum Topic

On-line sellers/sales

Many on-line sellers do not provide a paid invoice or any corresponding paperwork, wonder does the tax office accept this or not.  Is making a note of the purchase sufficient.

Janice Evans ● 1870d12 Comments

Many Amazon online sellers (mostly locally-registered Chinese sellers with GB VAT numbers) seem to be engaged in wholesale VAT evasion. You have to be very insistent to get a VAT invoice out of them, and the VAT is often calculated wrongly (as 20% of the gross rather than the net price), which shows they can't be making any serious effort to account for the tax.

Robert Fish ● 1870d

It seems there is always something underhand going on, it's not for me I was ask to help someone with his accounts and was surprised how muchcorresponding paperwork was missing and he said all items are on the bank statement and seem to think that was enough and has no understanding of what is required for accounts, I had told him to insist on an invoice when ordering which he said he had but they had not enclose anything. spent all day yesterday trying to tie things with his on-line purchases, not easy.

Janice Evans ● 1870d

It's a tricky question, Janice. There's no right to an invoice, unless the goods are subject to VAT and both seller and buyer are VAT-registered. Of course it's no use for existing purchases, but perhaps in future it might be possible for him to print an order summary from the website, which could subsequently be tied to the bank statement.

Robert Fish ● 1870d

Thank you, will ask him to do this in future, meanwhile will persevere.

Janice Evans ● 1870d

You can put him onto Amazon Business which highlights before the purchase if a VAT invoice is provided.  You can also change the settings so that he can only purchase via VAT registered sellers.

Ed Saper ● 1870d

Thank Ed, will suggest it.

Janice Evans ● 1870d

Even if he only has an ordinary Amazon account, an order summary is always available, which should serve as an adequate expense receipt in the absence of an invoice.

Robert Fish ● 1869d

Thanks, have manage to make more sense of it all, have suggest hekeep copies of everything.

Janice Evans ● 1866d

Verb endings missing - is this some kind of New Speak?

Anne England ● 1866d

Text talk

Janice Evans ● 1866d

There's plenty of reason for purists to find fault with others' written English. Indeed, there are contributors whose tortured syntax makes Janice's posts look like models of clarity. However, I take the view that it is condescending, and very bad form, to criticise either spelling or grammar on a public forum.

Robert Fish ● 1866d

Robert, it never bothers me, I send about 300 texts a week and forget toswitch over on here.  Other people's spelling never bothers me either.

Janice Evans ● 1866d