HMRC to pull paper VAT returns from April

25/January/2012

All VAT-registered businesses will be required to submit their VAT returns online from April 2012, HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) has announced.

Liabilities must be settled electronically too, the taxman said.

At the moment, only newly-registered businesses – and those with turnovers of more than £100,000 – have to submit their VAT online, as well as pay electronically.

Currently anyone else can send HMRC a paper VAT return if they so wish.

But that is changing from April, when all 1.9 million VAT-registered businesses in the UK will have to submit their returns online, and pay electronically, for accounting periods starting on or after April 1st 2012.

Separately, the tax authority is warning that anyone who needs to pay self assessment tax in 2010/11 needs to get their return in before the deadline, now under a week away.

January 31st is the final date that tax returns can be sent to HMRC and they must be done online. The deadline for paper returns passed in October 2011.