From: "Miss L. Toe" 
Newsgroups: uk.finance
Subject: Re: VAT on telephones
Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2006 18:02:22 +0100


"Adam"  wrote in message
news:4538fbf5$0$1387$da0feed9@news.zen.co.uk...
> My company, which is VAT registered, recently bought a phone directly from
> BT. They sent us a VAT invoice which showed that the VAT rate on the phone
> was zero. They only charged us a small amount of VAT on the postage and
> packing.
>
> We phoned BT, who acknowledged that it was probably an error, and promised
> to send a replacement VAT invoice. The replacement invoice was identical
to
> the first.
>
> After more phone calls to BT which by and large failed to reach anyone who
> understood what VAT was, I contacted the VAT enquiries people. Their
> response seemed extraordinary: they told me that it was up to BT to
> determine whether VAT was chargeable on the phone. I didn't realise that
> charging VAT on goods was optional.
>
> I don't know whether BT are selling phones without charging VAT, in which
> case they are cheating the taxpayer out of vast sums of money, or simply
> charging the VAT and not writing it on their invoice, in which case they
are
> cheating me out of a few quid (not sure which makes me more grumpy, to be
> honest). Either way, this seems to be something that a big public company
> like that really shouldn't be doing. What I find really astonishing,
> however, is that HMRC really doesn't seem to care about this.
>
> Does anyone else find this surprising?
>
> Adam
>
>

Try writing a letter to the cheif exec of BT saying you are bringing a
private prosecution for VAT Fraud.

That should get some some of response :-)