- Aparna registered for VAT in June and had to wait until October 13
- Delays made her consider moving her business out of Britain
- Did you have a problem with HMRC? Contact editor@thisismoney.co.uk
A small business owner has told This Is Money she is considering moving her business out of Britain after long delays with HMRC.
Aparna moved to Britain on a skilled work visa and built a career in artificial intelligence before coming up with the idea for a networking company.
She registered the company for VAT in June, but had to wait until October for a VAT number.
Aparna told This Is Money that she has lost out on business and is missing out on funding from her MBA course in the meantime.
A small business owner has said she is considering moving to Dubai due to HMRC delays
On June 29, HMRC informed Aparna that they were processing her VAT registration and that this would take up to 40 days.
She heard nothing from them and after three and a half months of chasing them via email, HMRC finally issued Aparna with a VAT registration number (VRN) on October 13.
However, this is not enough for Aparna to start her business properly due to visa restrictions, meaning she will face further delays.
‘I need a VAT certificate for a business permit. The VRN is not helping me and I need a business license to move things forward,” she told This Is Money.
‘I didn’t expect it to take so long, you don’t accept this from the government. The registration of the company was quick, but without VAT I cannot apply for a business permit, which I need to change visas.’
Aparna is currently in Britain on a skilled worker visa, but needs to switch to another visa to start her business.
“I can’t start formally doing business or promoting it on a large scale until these basic, basic things are taken care of. It creates a major bottleneck.
‘I want to start with this. I have customers who are willing to pay (but) until things are legally finalized, I can’t start generating revenue.”
Fortunately, the delays have not affected Aparna’s income as she works as a marketing manager, but she says she should have switched visas months ago.
She told This Is Money that the HMRC delays mean she is missing out on work and resources she has through her part-time MBA course.
‘I’ll graduate at the end of the year. As a student, I have all these resources and help from the startup incubator, access to my professors… the delay doesn’t help me get the most out of the resources.
“I don’t use my studies and resources, and my time is wasted.”
All this has led Aparna to consider moving her start-up out of Britain entirely.
‘I looked up the options in Dubai because it is so much faster and tax-free. I’m honestly considering moving the company to Dubai because of all these issues. I want to do things.’
When Aparna received her VRN number in mid-October, she was told she could download her VAT certificate, but she could not do so online.
Luckily she was able to check her account but discovered she already owed £5,000 in VAT, despite not currently trading due to delays.
After This Is Money contacted HMRC about the delays, Aparna received a call from HMRC on October 16 and was finally able to download her VAT certificate.
She was given a phone number and email address to contact someone about the outstanding charges, but she still hasn’t heard anything about the rogue £5,000 charge.
A spokesperson told This Is Money: ‘We apologize that this has taken longer than we normally expected. But we have now contacted the customer and helped her successfully download her VAT certificate.’