Reclaiming VAT on purchases if invoicing overseas clients

Hi,
in 2008 my clients were overseas so I did not apply VAT on invoices issued. I have been advised that I am not entitled to reclaim VAT on purchases if I am not paying VAT in Ireland. Is this correct? I cannot find any reference on Revenue.ie.

Thanks

If you are not paying VAT, how can you reclaim VAT?

Hello John,

I am assuming that you are registered for VAT and that as you are exporting, then you are not charging VAT to your customers. Is that what you mean when you say you are not paying VAT ?

You are allowed claim a refund for VAT you paid on your purchases in Ireland so if your situation continues, you will always be claiming a VAT refund from the revenue.

As Above you can claim all the VAT on purchases.
I have been invoicing overseas clients for over a year with no VAT on my sales and have claimed a refund every two months.

Thanks to all for responding. To clarify; I am not charging VAT to clients because they are overseas but wish to reclaim VAT that I pay on purchases made in Ireland.

I also sent this query to Revenue and they have confirmed that it is perfectly valid to reclaim VAT on purchases but not to apply VAT on sales to overseas clients.

So the original advice I had been given, that caused me to post here in the first place, was incorrect. There's a lot of it about, isn't there, bad advice!

johntheboard said:

So the original advice I had been given, that caused me to post here in the first place, was incorrect. There's a lot of it about, isn't there, bad advice!

Click to expand...

Very true, just out of interest, was that advice from a professional advisor or other ?