Explanatory note

These Regulations amend the VAT Regulations 1995 (S.I. 1995/2518) (‘the Principal Regulations’).

Regulation 5 inserts regulations 4A and 4B (electronic communication) into the Principal Regulations to enable businesses to make what are termed “specified communications” (listed in regulation 4B) using an electronic communications system specified in a direction made by the Commissioners for HM Revenue and Customs (“the Commissioners”). Regulation 4A makes specific provision in relation to the making, timing and means of identifying the deliverer of an electronic communication and provides that an electronic communication otherwise carries the same consequences as a communication in paper form.

Regulation 9 inserts regulation 15B into the Principal Regulations to make provision about invoices required in relation to the anti-forestalling charge provided for in Schedule 27 to the Finance Act 2012.

Regulation 17 inserts regulation 113A into the Principal Regulations to make special transitional provision in the case of items used to make grants of facilities for the self storage of goods under item (1)(ka) of Group 1 of Schedule 9 to the Value Added Tax Act 1994 (“VATA”) that would not otherwise fall within the ambit of the capital goods scheme due to their low value. If the owner of the item so decides and the specified conditions are otherwise satisfied, the item is treated as a capital item for the purposes of the capital goods scheme.

Regulation 4 and regulations 6 to 8, 10 to 16 and 18 to 26 make amendments in consequence of amendments made to VATA by sections 203 and 204 of, and Schedules 28 and 29 to, the Finance Act 2012 to: (1) allow the Commissioners to determine the form of a number of communications the form of which is currently prescribed in Schedule 1 to the Principal Regulations in a notice made under the Principal Regulations and (2) make provision about the registration of non-established taxable persons in a new Schedule 1A (registration in respect of taxable supplies: non-UK establishment) to be inserted into VATA.

These regulations: (1) remove the specific references to forms in Schedule 1 to the Principal Regulations, providing instead that the form of those communications is to be specified in a notice published by the Commissioners and (2) insert references to the new Schedule 1A where appropriate. Regulation 6 also makes some consequential amendments following the insertion of regulations 4A and 4B.

Regulation 27 omits Schedule 1.

A Tax Information and Impact Note covering the changes made by this instrument other than those made by regulations 9 and 17 was published in December 2011 on the HMRC website and a revised Tax Information and Impact Note will be issued in summer 2012 which will also be published on the HMRC website (in both cases at http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/thelibrary/tiins.htm).The changes made by regulations 9 and 17 were included in a Tax Information and Impact Note published on 28 June 2012 as part of the “VAT: Addressing borderline anomalies” Summary of Responses document published on the HMRC website at http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/thelibrary.