VAT New Registration
During June after consultation with my accountant my 12 month rolling turnover during May/June of this year required me to register for vat, which my accountant did on my behalf. He had let me know that the VAT Registration was applied for on 16 July 2010. also that I would need to charge VAT at 17.5% on all work invoiced from "1st August 2010", I got my certificate of registration from HMRC at the begining of August but it has an effective date of "1st July 2010" because I did not add VAT to my invoices during July I'm now liable for approx £2000.00 VAT charge. My labour is sub-contracted to one large company and so is it possible that can I still charge this company for the VAT on these July invoices allthough these invoices have already been received and paid by the company.
VAT registration
You need to go back to your accountant to clarify the matter. Basically once you go over the VAT threshold you must notify HMRC within 30 days of the end of the relevant month. HMRC will register you within 30 days of the end of the relevant month. i.e if you were liable to register by 31 May 2010 -you must notify HMRC by 30 June 2010, HMRC will register from 1 July 2010 unless mutually agreed otherwise.
HMRC can amend your effective date of registration if it is wrong -without knowing your relevant t/o figures it is difficult to comment further
Malcolm McFarlin
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And the question is ...?
If your 12-month rolling turnover exceeded £70,000 by the end of May, you should have been registered for VAT from 1st July; if you exceeded the limit by the end of June, then you should have been registered from 1st August.
However, since you appear to have been registered from 1st July, then you should indeed now invoice your customer for the VAT only, quoting your VAT registration number on this and all future invoices. It is probably better to issue a credit note without VAT to cancel the original invoice and then issue a proper invoice with VAT.