Conduct a vat check of your respective supplier before finalizing your transaction

If you are a vat registered trader in the UK or even in some other member EU country that has embraced vat then you need to conduct a vat check of your supplier before finalizing your transaction, especially if you plan to import goods or services to your country. It is really quite simple to conduct a vat number check over the internet before you spend your hard-earned money.

VAT or value added tax is a system of taxing goods and services that is followed in a number of countries around the world including most eu countries. If you’re a trader in the United Kingdom that may be importing services or goods from other eu countries where vat has already been paid in the country of origin then you can vatcheck apply for a vat refund. This may permit you to reclaim vat paid earlier so as to avoid double-taxation. However, it is necessary that you simply buy your goods originating from a vat registered trader or exporter overseas so the chain of vat continues as soon as the goods or services are imported to the UK.

However, there may be a chance that an unregistered vat trader might try to dupe you of your savings by charging you vat whilst providing you with a fake or expired vat number on the vat invoice. When this happens, you might not have the ability to reclaim any vat on that transaction, which inturn will raise your costs and deny you your rightful refund. It is thus very important to conduct a vat check that usually takes a short time when you log on to the official European Commission or EUROPA website that permits you to conduct a vat registration check and validate if your supplier has indeed provided you with a genuine vat number.

All that you should do is log on to the EUROPA website ec.europa.eu directly or visit the hmrc vat department website and follow the link provided at the website. All you need to do is always to pick the eu country of your supplier, type in the vat number of your proposed supplier, choose your country code, and enter your own vat number. You will now need to click on verify, upon which the verification software will inform you if the vat number is valid.

Whenever possible, you should try to print the validation screen as evidence of having conducted the check at a particular date and time. If the registration number isn’t valid you’ll be able to tell your supplier since there could be many reasons for such a response, including a genuine mistake in providing you with the vat number to willful wrongdoing on the supplier?s part. You sould never forget that ultimately it is your business that will suffer if you don’t conduct a vat number check.

Performing a vat registration number check is very important if you are planning to buy services or goods from vat registered traders in a foreign country that also follow the system of vat. The exact checking process hardly takes more than a few seconds and conducting a vat check will certainly save your business a lot of money and pain should the supplied vat number turns out to be incorrect.