This section will help you answer the questions when you complete the VAT application form.

Please give your full name

Company: If your business is a company, give the company’s name.

Write your trading name if it is different from the name given in question 1. Otherwise leave the box blank.

Your principal place of business is the place where you receive and deal with your orders and carry on and manage the day-to-day business.

Please remember to give the postcode and phone number where your local VAT Business Advice Centre can contact you. Please give your fax number if you have one.

If you wish to have correspondence sent to an address other than the principal place of business, you must make a specific request with reasons why that address should be used.

Give a full description of what your business is about. For example, the type of goods or services you supply or make and whether your supplies are retail or wholesale.

Tick one box only. If the business is a limited company, please remember to give the number and the date shown on your Certificate of Incorporation.

Tick ‘Yes’ if you are taking over a business as a going concern or changing the legal status of your business (for example, from sole proprietor to partnership). Give the date of the transfer and also the last owner’s name and VAT registration number of the business, if you know it.

To transfer a business as a going concern you must transfer some or all of the assets from one person to another and usually with no break in trading.

In certain circumstances you can apply to keep the last owner’s registration number. If you want to keep the number tick ‘Yes’ for the last part of question 6.

You must also complete Form VAT 68 Request for reallocation of a registration number which you can get from your local VAT Business Advice Centre. When you have filled in this form you should send it in with your application Form VAT 1.

Please give your bank’s sort code and your account number, or give your Girobank account number. We need this information so we can repay any VAT which is owed to you directly into your bank account.

Tick ‘Yes’ if you keep your records on a computer. When you have filled in the application form, please enclose a letter giving details of the type of computer and software package you use. If someone else owns the computer (for example, a computer bureau) please enclose details with your application.

If you have started trading and made either standard-rated or zero-rated supplies answer ‘Yes’ here and give the date you made your first sale.

If you have not yet started trading answer ‘No’ and give the date when you expect to start trading. You will also need to enclose written proof to show that you are going to make taxable business supplies by the date you have given.

The proof can include details of the arrangements you have made to date, copies of any contracts you may have, planning permission, details of any stock or equipment you have bought, patents you have applied for or an option to tax certain supplies of land or buildings.

Tick ‘Yes’ if you have already gone over £52,000 and give the date when you went over the limit. If you have not gone over the registration limit tick ‘No’ and go to question 11.

Tick ‘Yes’ if the value of the taxable supplies you will make in the next 30 days is likely to go over £52,000. Tick ‘No’ if you are not likely to go over the limit.

If you think that the supplies you will make in the next 30 days alone will go over the limit, you must register for VAT on the date you think you will go over the limit in the next 30 days. You should fill in Form VAT 1 and send it to us within 30 days of the date you first thought you would go over the limit. The date of registration will be the date you first believed it would happen and not the date you expected it to happen.

If you want to be registered from an earlier date fill in the second part of question 12.

Please remember - if you don’t apply for registration at the proper time we may fine you.

You will find more about this in Notice 700/41 Late registration penalty. If you are not sure, contact your local VAT Business Advice Centre or Registration office for advice. Their address and phone number are stamped on the front of your VAT 1 application form.

You can apply for registration if you are already making taxable supplies below the registration limit or if you are not yet making taxable supplies but you are going to in the future. Your registration cannot be backdated any more than three years from the current date.

Give the date which you want to be registered from.

Give the value of taxable supplies you expect to make in the 12 months after your registration date.

Fill in this question if your business will be trading in goods with another member state of the European Community. Give the value of goods you think you will sell and the value of goods you think you will buy in a year.

Do not include the value of any services unless they are directly related to moving goods (for example, commission, freight insurance and so on).

As well as the United Kingdom, the following countries are members of the European Community:

Austria Germany Netherlands

Belgium Greece Portugal

Denmark Ireland Spain

Finland Italy Sweden

France Luxembourg

You can apply for exemption from registration if you would not normally have to pay VAT to us because your taxable supplies are all (or nearly all) zero-rated.

Tick ‘Yes’ if you want to apply for exemption from VAT registration. Also, give the value of the zero-rated supplies you expect to make in the next 12 months.

Tick ‘Yes’ if you expect to receive regular repayments of VAT from us because the VAT on what you sell will normally be less than the VAT on what you buy.

Tick ‘Yes’ if anyone in your business is involved in another VAT-registered business in the UK or Isle of Man, or has been in the last 24 months. This means anyone who is or may have been a sole proprietor, a partner or a director of another business. Give the registration numbers of the other businesses in the boxes provided. Continue on a separate piece of paper if you need to.

Only the person described below should sign the declaration and tick the appropriate box.

For a company incorporated under the UK Companies Act

• a director or the company secretary.

For a public corporation, a nationalised organisation, a local authority or another corporation

• an authorised official.

Checklist

When you have filled in the form, check that you have enclosed all the extra information we need.

• Partnership: If your business is a partnership, please fill in and return Form VAT 2.

• Trusts: If your business is a trust you must supply the names of all the trustees.

• Computer accounts: Please give us details of the type of computer and software you use. If the computer is owned by someone else, give their name.

• If you have not yet started trading: Please remember to send written proof to show us that you are going to start making taxable supplies by the date you have given.

• Option to tax: If you are liable to be registered, or wish to be registered, because you have opted to tax certain supplies of land or buildings, include written notice of the option.

• If your business was transferred to you as a going concern: If you want to keep the last owner’s VAT number, both you and the last owner must fill in Form VAT 68.

• Other VAT registrations: If you are involved in other VAT registrations, give the name and the VAT registration number of the other businesses.

If you disagree with a decision given about your VAT registration, you can ask your local office to reconsider it. You also have the right to appeal to an independent tribunal. Your local VAT Business Advice Centre will give you details.