Readers forum: Joint venture

One of my clients is a construction company specialising in building work on residential conversions. In April 2018 a joint venture partnership (JV) was agreed with an American company specific to building work to be carried out for two property developers converting UK offices into apartments. Both of these projects qualify for the 5% VAT rate. The problem is that there have been practical delays with setting up the JV so since October 2018 when the work started all input tax and output tax on these projects has been accounted for on the VAT returns of my client rather than the JV. In fact the JV has only recently received its VAT number from HMRC backdated to April 2018.

Sales invoices have been issued to the two customers showing my client’s VAT number and the names of the two companies...