Is this owned or not?

VAT return spanning from 2009/2012

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Hi 

I have recently taking over the books for my local shop they have been a victim of some poor bookkeeping 

basiclly they come to me asking for some advice becasue they have been paying more and more VAT for about two years. i told them to speak to the accountant see whats happening.

they follwed my advice and then the accountant took the books away for about three weeks 'cleaning up' all the mistakes the bookkeeper had  made. From what i can gather she was making some very basic mistakes putting gross were net should be accounting the lottery as sales instead of commison stuff like that. Now after the accountant had the laptop there was a VAT return on there 2009/2012 they stated that the shop was owned a large amount of money. When I rang the accountant to ask him what this is he just said that he done a VAT clean up??? which ive never heard of, and said that money is not owned to them. Now form my point of view if the accountant has clean up all the bookkeppers mistakes and then the vat return comes out saying they are owned money then surely they are? I am aware that you can only go back four years to re file the VAT but jsut curious if its owned to them or not? 

thanks 

Replies (4)

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By Ruddles
27th Feb 2017 16:18

I have been a victim of some poor English.

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By Jackie0802
27th Feb 2017 16:21

I'm not sure how you think anyone who does not have eyes on the data to be able to answer this question. It seems to me that your client needs to have an explanation from the old accountant. It also seems to me that two professionals, you and the old accountant, should be able to speak the same language enough for one to give an explanation that the other can understand.

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By tcpc992
28th Feb 2017 06:51

I understand that let me put it another way, if the VAT return says they are owed money that they haven't received how are they not owed it?

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Replying to tcpc992:
By Ruddles
28th Feb 2017 07:25

You need to establish exactly what the VAT balance is. If the accountant has identified specific VAT under claims then of course this should be recovered subject to time limits.

If, as I suspect, they've simply ended up with an unidentifiable balance on the VAT account that's tough.

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