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Today marks the start of a campaign by CRN to highlight the plight of UK traders left struggling as a result of HM Revenue & Custom’s (HMRC) stringent VAT repayment process.
Over the coming months we hope to speak to as many legitimate UK firms as possible that have been unwittingly caught in the net, as the government continues its crackdown on VAT carousel fraudsters.
One such firm, which is on the verge of shutting up shop, is Middlesex-based CPU trader Aston Technology Partners (ATP), which has been waiting for a repayment of £110,000 since last August.
Jeanette Weeks, company secretary at ATP, told CRN: “We are a small, family-run company that has been trading for three years. We have literally a couple of weeks left before we go out of business. Although the money isn’t a huge amount to a lot of people, it is a huge chunk of our working capital. HMRC refuses to talk to us and it is like banging your head against a brick wall.”
Weeks said her firm has spent thousands on due diligence to ensure they only trade from legitimate sources.
“We are not being accused of fraud by HMRC, but it seems that they are just penalising the whole industry and forcing a lot of people out of business.”
An HMRC representative declined to comment on ATP and told CRN the organisation “does not comment on individual cases”.
However, Anthony Elliot-Square, director of the Federation of Technological Industries (FTI), said that HMRC is punishing the entire IT industry.
“HMRC has the attitude and opinion that the whole industry is fraudulent,” he said. “It cannot understand that in fact there are a lot of legitimate companies out there trying to do legitimate business. HMRC has decided the only way to defeat fraud is by targeting everybody.
“We are certainly not on the side of the fraudsters, we are supporting legi timate companies that are trying to do business in a difficult environment.”
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