Two trades one individual - Vat registration?

Two trades one individual - Vat registration?

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Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Trader A is in partnership with trader B and Vat registered.

Trader A wants to setup a different business (sole trader) and Vat register this business.  No problem so far.

Now if the partnership ceases and trader A decides to keep the business in case of future work he will have two trades separately registered for Vat with different vat numbers.

I understand that it is the person that is registered, is that correct?  Would that cause problems with two vat numbers?

Is this allowed as they are distinctly different trades or would he need to use just one vat number for the two businesses?

As previously stated, any thoughts appreciated.

Replies (4)

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By spidersong
25th Jun 2015 14:33

One person, one number

When the partnership ceased it would need to deregister for VAT as it would not be trading anymore, since the trade would be carried on by the already registered sole prop.

Any entity can only have one VAT registration at a time, so what would happen is if you wrote to HMRC to say"no partnership can you amend the VAT reg to a sole prop" they'd (should) look at their records and say "hang on he's already registered, we'll just cancel the partnerships VAT reg from the time it disolved".

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By Glosbookkeeping.co.uk
06th Jul 2015 00:36

Only one registration allowed
As above but may be worth writing to HMRC to state that the ex partnership VAT affairs will now be carried on under your sole trade registration to avoid any enquiries into the partnership registration when it is closed. Suggest treated as a TOGC rather than a succession if HMRC will accept that so that you are not on the hook for the full partnership's historic liabilities. Otherwise if want to keep VAT regs separate you could just make the trader's husband/wife a partner just before the existing partner retires. Might be beneficial from a direct tax perspective as well.

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By User deleted
06th Jul 2015 07:34

When you say the partnership ceased trading I would presume the partnership got dissolved. The vAT registration was in the name of the partnership which doesn't exist anymore. So it should get itself deregistered for VAT.

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RLI
By lionofludesch
06th Jul 2015 09:41

No Partnership

No partnership, no VAT number.  So your client doesn't have two registrations.  Just the one, through which all his VAT transactions must pass.

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