Association Insight International & European 1 | Page 46

Association Success Story
Annual congress: VAT Saving & adjustment for a UK Event
Organisation:

Categories:

Not-for-profit association (CONFIDENTIAL)

Events
Finance

Organisation and Membership Profile:
Confidential
Member Geography:
Number of Members:
Organisation location:

60 countries
2500
USA

Lead Contact:
Position:

Jean-Francois Bernard
Director

Project Dates:
From:
To:

1st September 2011
31st May 2013

Aims and Objectives:
The association needed to understand how the VAT liability had come about and how it could handle the
situation, the demands for penalty payments from the HMRC and accusations of fraud.

Introduction:
The association faced a tax adjustment of thousands pounds after holding their annual congress in the UK, an
event which attracted 2000 attendees from 50 countries.

Background:
The association held its annual congress in the UK and, to ensure compliance with UK VAT regulations,
engaged the services of a British VAT consultant.
After the event, the consultant informed the association that there were entitled to recover VAT charged on
local expenses.
Several weeks later the association received a letter from Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC), the
UK government’s tax collection agency, stating that they should have collected a large amount of VAT on the
various fees imposed (i.e. registration, exhibition and sponsoring).
This led to a tax audit of the association’s activities and a demand for £127,668 for outstanding VAT.
In 2011, having determined that it was not possible to ask the event’s participants to pay the outstanding VAT
bill it was decided that the association should consult an expert in the UK VAT field in an attempt to reduce