Wrongly registered

My client started a small gardening business (unincorporated) and for the past two tax years he has completed his own self assessment forms.

On ‘talking to someone down the pub’ they said that he needed to register for VAT as he was trading. Without further investigation he downloaded the registration form and successfully registered for VAT.

The two main problems are first that his annual turnover is approximately £16 000 per annum; and secondly that he completed the form by stating the ‘effective’ date as the date he started his business backdating it to 2008.

I have subsequently sent a letter to HMRC with a deregistration form (which they accepted and processed) and asked in light of the confusion whether they could either change the effective date or make the entire registration null...