A change to the VAT rules first announced at Budget 2018, will come into effect from 1 October 2019. This change will make the supply of construction services between construction or building businesses subject to the domestic reverse charge. The reverse charge will only apply to supplies of specified construction services to other businesses in the construction sector. The introduction of this reverse charge targets fraud where VAT due to HMRC is never paid by a building subcontractor.

New guidance on the workings of the domestic reverse charge (referred to as the reverse charge) has been published by HMRC. Using the reverse charge procedure changes the usual VAT treatment such that the customer receiving the service is liable to account for the VAT due rather than the supplier. There is no cash impact for building clients affected. The main contractor will pay the subcontractor the amount of their charge excluding VAT. They will simply add the VAT reverse charge to their return and claim back the VAT amount as input VAT.

The reverse charge will affect certain specified supplies of building and construction services supplied at the standard or reduced rates that are reported under the Construction Industry Scheme (CIS). These are called specified supplies. This will place the onus for dealing with the VAT charge due on subcontractors’ bills to the main contractor.

There are now less than 4 months until the new rules come into effect and businesses that will be impacted should already be making the necessary preparations. HMRC has said that they understand that implementing the reverse charge may cause some difficulties and will apply a light touch in dealing with any errors made in the first 6 months of the new legislation, as long as you are trying to comply with the new legislation and have acted in good faith.

A change to the VAT rules first announced at Budget 2018 will come into effect from 1 October 2019. This change will make the supply of construction services between construction or building businesses subject to the domestic reverse charge. The reverse charge will only apply to supplies of specified construction services to other businesses in the construction sector.

This move is part of the government’s measures to combat what is known as missing trader fraud in the construction sector, where VAT due to HMRC is never paid by the subcontractor. This type of fraud has been common in other business sectors such as cross-border trading in mobile telephones, computer chips and emissions allowances.

Using the reverse charge procedure changes the usual VAT treatment so that the customer is liable to account for the VAT due rather than the supplier. This will place the onus for dealing with the VAT charge due on subcontractors’ bills to the main contractor.

The new reverse charge will be most relevant to sub-contractors and contractors carrying out supplies reported through the Construction Industry Scheme. These changes will lead to administrative changes for some 100,000 to 150,000 businesses in this sector, including many small businesses.

Adopting accounting systems to cope with this change will cause accounting rather than cash flow issues for main contractors as they will add entries to their VAT returns to refect the subcontractors’ VAT, but then deduct the equivalent amount as input VAT on the same return.

There are less than 12 months until the new rules come into effect and businesses that will be impacted, need to begin making any necessary preparations.