Readers’ forum: The wording of an invoice

I read with interest Neil Warren’s recent article ‘Land sale challenges’ in Taxation (21 November 2019) and wonder whether I have missed a trick with one of my farmer clients. The farmer owns an area of land (Holly End) as a partnership with his son and daughter. This is a different legal entity from the main farm that is registered for VAT and has always been rented out to another farmer who has kept his sheep on the land.

The sales invoices to the farmer have always shown ‘rent of land at Holly End’ – there has been no mention on those invoices that the land has only been used by the farmer for grazing rights; in other words zero-rated sales. The partnership has never registered for VAT.

In view of the way the sales invoices have been described as ‘rent’ ...