VATREG23200 - Voluntary registrations: persons who do not make or intend to make taxable supplies in the UK: law

The VAT Act 1994, Schedule 1, 10 provides for the voluntary registration of a person who does not make, or intend to make taxable supplies in the UK, but who makes business supplies which

• would have been taxable supplies (including zero-rated) if they had been made in the UK, or
• are supplies of warehoused goods which are otherwise disregarded under the VAT Act 1994, section 18. Under this section, certain supplies of warehoused goods are relieved from VAT and are treated as taking place outside the UK.

10—

(1) Where a person who is not liable to be registered under this Act and is not already so registered satisfies the Commissioners that he—

(a) makes supplies within sub-paragraph (2) below; or

(b) is carrying on a business and intends to make such supplies in the course or furtherance of that business,

and (in either case) is within sub-paragraph (3) below, they shall, if he so requests, register him with effect from the day on which the request is made or from such earlier date as may be agreed between them and him.

(2) A supply is within this sub-paragraph if—

(a) it is made outside the United Kingdom but would be a taxable supply if made in the United Kingdom; or

(b) it is specified for the purposes of subsection (2) of section 26 in an order made under paragraph (c) of that subsection.]1

(3) A person is within this sub-paragraph if—

(a) he has a business establishment in the United Kingdom or his usual place of residence is in the United Kingdom; and

(b) he does not make and does not intend to make taxable supplies.

(4) For the purposes of this paragraph—

(a) a person carrying on a business through a branch or agency in the United Kingdom shall be treated as having a business establishment in the United Kingdom, and

(b) “usual place of residence”, in relation to a body corporate, means the place where it is legally constituted.