HM Revenue and Customs will extend, for a further 12 months, the transitional arrangements relating to the VAT treatment of pension scheme costs. Schemes and employers now have until the end of December 2017 to comply with HMRC's new requirements.

Where there is a third party supplier of both investment and management services and those services are not invoiced separately, HMRC has been content to accept an assumption that the

costs could be attributed as 30% management and 70% investment (known as the 70/30 split). HMRC briefing note 06/14 originally announced that the 70/30 split to be applied to a combined invoice could no longer be used from 3 February 2014 except where a pension scheme received such an invoice during the following six month transitional period. However, that transitional period has been extended three times - and HMRC has not ruled out extending it again "if necessary".

The sponsoring employer of a pension scheme will normally seek to recover VAT on items such as

a) scheme establishment costs;

b) cost of collecting contributions and paying benefits;

c) scheme accounting and auditing costs; . . .

07 Sept 2016   Check other news items