Course Details

In the world of VAT and property, the option to tax is frequently encountered and not infrequently misunderstood in some ways.  When advising clients on the purchase or sale of property, an appreciation of the effects of the option to tax and the circumstances where it is or is not needed is crucial.  This session seeks to clear away some of the misunderstandings and chart a clear path to deciding when and how an option to tax is appropriate and, just as importantly, when it is not.


In this session, Neil Owen covers the following:

  1. When an option to tax is and isn’t needed
  2. Exercising an option to tax 
  3. Notifying an option to tax (including belatedly)
  4. Revoking an option to tax
  5. The disapplication of the option to tax

CPD Course Speaker

VAT Advisory Services Ltd

Neil Owen

Neil Owen BA CTA(Fellow) FBIAC AIIT is the founder and managing director of VAT Advisory Services Limited. He has been a full-time VAT adviser since 1990.

Neil entered the world of VAT in 1984, when he joined H M Customs & Excise as a VAT officer. After six years, split evenly between the VAT offices in Oxford and Swindon, he left the department to work for chartered accountants James & Cowper, where he headed up the provision of VAT consultancy services from 1990 to 2002.

From August 2002 to April 2007, Neil was principal of Southern VAT, a consultancy practice based in the outskirts of Southampton, and a freelance speaker. He formed VAT Advisory Services Limited in May 2007, since when he has been providing both consultancy and training services under his own banner.

Neil is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Taxation, an Associate of the Institute of Indirect Tax, and a Fellow of the British Institute of Agricultural Consultants. He was for ten years National Secretary of the VAT Practitioners Group, and for six general editor of the annual book, CCH VAT Planning. He is also a former editor of the CIOT journal, Tax Adviser.