My company, which is VAT registered, recently bought a phone directly from BT. They sent us a VAT invoice which showed that the VAT rate on the phone was zero. They only charged us a small amount of VAT on the postage and packing.
We phoned BT, who acknowledged that it was probably an error, and promised to send a replacement VAT invoice. The replacement invoice was identical to the first.
After more phone calls to BT which by and large failed to reach anyone who understood what VAT was, I contacted the VAT enquiries people. Their response seemed extraordinary: they told me that it was up to BT to determine whether VAT was chargeable on the phone. I didn't realise that charging VAT on goods was optional.
I don't know whether BT are selling phones without charging VAT, in which case they are cheating the taxpayer out of vast sums of money, or simply charging the VAT and not writing it on their invoice, in which case they are cheating me out of a few quid (not sure which makes me more grumpy, to be honest). Either way, this seems to be something that a big public company like that really shouldn't be doing. What I find really astonishing, however, is that HMRC really doesn't seem to care about this.
Does anyone else find this surprising?
Adam