Course Details

VAT has been with us for more than fifty years now. It was always meant to be a simple tax, but everyone knows it isn’t. It’s many complexities, nuances, and bizarre quirks create pitfalls that await the unwary. In this session, we’ll shine a light into some of VAT’s darker corners and help you steer away from some of the traps.

 

In this session Carl Bayley will cover the following topics:

 

  • Property and construction: always a difficult area
  • Business entertaining and gifts
  • Staff entertaining, welfare, and benefits
  • The flat rate scheme: friend or foe?
  • Claiming back VAT on pre-registration expenditure
  • What if you don’t have a VAT invoice, what can you still claim?

 

By attending this session, delegates will have a better understanding of some of the more difficult and controversial areas of VAT compliance.

 

The session will be of most interest to business owners and accountants working in industry, but may also be of benefit to general practitioners, tax advisers, and accountancy students.

 

Course level: Foundation / Intermediate

CPD Course Speaker

BSc FCA, Author and Presenter

Carl Bayley

Carl Bayley is the author of a series of plain English tax guides designed specifically for the layperson and the non-specialist (available from www.taxcafe.co.uk). His particular speciality is his ability to take the weird, complex, inexplicable world of taxation and set it out in the kind of clear, straightforward language taxpayers themselves can understand. Carl takes the same approach when speaking on taxation, a role he frequently undertakes with great enthusiasm, including his highly acclaimed annual ‘Budget Breakfast’ for the ICAEW. He has spoken on taxation on radio and television, including the BBC’s ‘It’s Your Money’ programme and BBC Radio 2’s Jeremy Vine Show. Carl is a past Chairman of the Tax Faculty of the ICAEW and former member of the Institute’s governing Council and Board. Aside from his tax books, Carl is an avid creative writer. His first novel, Trinity of Souls, was published in 2024, with his second, Destiny of Souls, following in March 2025. When he isn’t working, he takes on the equally taxing challenges of hill walking and horse riding: his Munro tally is now 106 and, while he remains a novice rider, his progress is cantering along nicely. Carl lives in the Scottish Borders, where he enjoys spending time with his partner, Linda.