VAT and charities

[Ann Clarke (Tabby cat)]

CP are in the process of doing this for the whole organisation, it's one of the reasons we've changed to calling them adoption fees rather than donations as it means we can claim back the VAT on costs associated with getting a cat ready for rehoming i.e food, litter, vet bills etc (donations means you have to claim gift aid). Be warned though it does take a while to see the colour of their money but we've just had notification of what we are getting back for our branch for the last quarter of 2010 and the first quarter of 2011 and it's about £700 which is not to be sneezed at and is more than we would have got in gift aid. Anything that gets money back from the tax man is ok by me. They are going back the four years but as we've already had gift aid for that period it's a bit tricker to work out. Fingers crossed you get lots of dosh back 

[Angiew]

well I've just applied for VAT registration online - didn't take too long.
Didn't know what to say my main activity was though, the nearest was retail other....

You can back date four years so I've put a registry date on of 16/01/2008.

Now to wait 6 months....

[Angiew]

There has been a recent ruling about charities and VAT.

The people who have posted it, think it has some significance to animal rescues. I'm not sure that I understand it - any tax peeps out there?

 I may have attached the document if purrs lets me or I can email to anyone interested!

Angie

I have also posed the question on yahoo answers

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20120114050257AAxTKm6

and also asked one of our new owners who is a company accountant and he has said he doesn't know but will have a look.

and emailed HMRC.

If its true then to be able to claim back VAT on our expenditure for the last 6 years may be quite significant!