Checking the validity of a VAT number

[Brendan Burgess]

I was speaking to an owner of an employment agency yesterday who had a VAT audit. One of his contractors had been invoicing him with a spoof VAT number for 5 years. He also was using a spoof limited company name.

This came up during a VAT audit of the employment agency and Revenue tried to make the agency liable - claiming that as the company didn't exist , the individual was a PAYE employee of the agency. The agency successfully defended this but it was a lot of hassle and a lot of expense.

It's easy to check the validity of a VAT number

http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/vies/

so it's probably worth doing for new suppliers, especially small companies or sole traders

 

[STEINER]

Thats useful to know. I checked a number just there, it didn't need a requester member state/VAT number to do it, just the state/number to query.