VAT and Legal/Accountancy Services to Trustees

[SP11]

Trust administered in the UK with one UK professional Trustee and one American Trustee who is the client and principal Trustee.

Services supplied are of a general administrative nature and relate to legal/accountancy work.

Place of supply defaults to where customer is based given it's B2C as per VAT Notice 741A but is that the Principal Trustee in this case and therefore no VAT?

[pawncob]

Where is the Trust registered? You're working for the Trust not the trustees.

[SP11]

@pawncob couldn't work out how to directly reply so I tagged you instead.

That's what is confusing me but reading below seems to be in line with your thinking. To answer your question the trust has its assets invested in the UK and not anywhere else but it could be argued that the US Trustee makes all relevant decisions including to engage the law firm providing the services who incidentally to that engagement are listed as (if they decided to move to another advisor the trustee company would step down as Trustee).

https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/vat-registration-manual/vatreg12800

"Even where trustees simply act as custodians they remain a separate entity for VAT purposes and are potentially capable of making and receiving taxable supplies." specifically. The trust would therefore appear to be a separate entity for VAT purposes and as the Trust Deed and Assets are in the UK then VAT should be charged. My head hurts with this one.

[SP11]

Also this seems relevant https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/vat-registration-manual/vatreg02100

[pawncob]

Are you acting for the American Trustee or the Trust itself? Your first sentence doesn't make it clear.

[SP11]

Are you acting for the American Trustee or the Trust itself? Your first sentence doesn't make it clear.

Sorry for the delay in replying, not sure if there are notifications on this forum or not but would be handy!

We are engaged to act for the Trust in that we have Terms in place signed by both Trustees. There are no other advisors involved.

[SP11]

Edit: I have now found the notification settings.

[pawncob]

If the Trust is UK registered then VAT applies.

[SP11]

If the Trust is UK registered then VAT applies.

Thank you and noted for the future as I anticipate this to come up fairly frequently.