What different business procedures will businesses have to take in order to comply with the new rules?
RW: Yes – they should review their cross-border contracts to see how they will work under the new regime. They have also to make sure that their accounting systems are changed. Businesses who receive services from outside the UK will have to record the reverse charge in the UK much more diligently than before, even if they are fully taxable. And as part of the package, the time of supply will be changing for the reverse charge. For a single service, it will be the date of completion of the service or payment if earlier. There are different rules for continuous supplies of services where the invoice period will be the date of the supply – the period covered by the invoice and if there isn’t any invoice for the whole year – there will be a deemed supply on the 31st of December which is causing some concern amongst businesses although HMRC have said that they promise to be flexible. I think the first thing to say is that they will have to make sure their accounting systems can pick up the
