VAT place of supply rules for goods

The VAT Act 1994 begins at s 1 with the basic charging provision: ‘Value added tax shall be charged in accordance with the provisions of this Act on the supply of goods or services in the United Kingdom (including anything treated as such a supply).’

The law goes into more detail after that of course but this starting point highlights an important distinction: UK VAT is charged on supplies that are treated as made in the UK and UK VAT is not charged on supplies that are treated as made somewhere else. Such ‘outside the scope supplies’ may have other VAT consequences in the UK and elsewhere but they will not incur a liability to UK output tax or to UK VAT registration.

The devil as the saying might go is in...