Readers' forum : Business as usual?

I have a UK-based client who does a lot of printing work for a big corporate business in Moscow. Much of the printing is sent to Russia by courier so we have proof of shipment to secure zero-rating for VAT purposes. However the customer recently ordered some gold business cards and expensive stationery at short notice and asked for them to be delivered to a hotel near to Gatwick Airport – the customer then shipped them to Russia on the company’s private jet.

My client zero-rated this sale (it was for a large amount of money) but I suspect after reading details about the case of Angela McCamley (TC5433) in Taxation (see 10 November 2016) that HMRC would treat the sale as standard-rated in the absence of shipping documents.

Do readers have any suggestions on how to avoid a potential VAT problem if my client ever has a compliance...