Case Studies
Case Study: Company X Exhibition Organiser
The Problem
Exhibition company X, one of South Africa’s largest Exhibition Companies, was awarded the tender by South African Tourism to co-ordinate several international exhibitions in the UK and Germany. Due to the fact that Exhibition Company X wasn’t reclaiming international VAT from their expenses incurred in these two countries, their profitability was down by 17.5% for their UK exhibitions and 19% for their German exhibitions. For various reasons, previous attempts to recover this VAT had failed, with both HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) in the UK and VAT authorities in Germany rejecting their VAT claims.
The Solution
Exhibition Company X enlisted VATit to help recover their foreign VAT on expenses incurred in Germany and the UK. VATit’s first step in doing this was to register Exhibition Company X in both Germany and the UK, which meant they were now eligible to reclaim VAT expenses in these countries that they’d previously had to write off. VATit also advised Exhibition Company X about invoicing their clients in order to be compliant with the UK and German VAT Acts.
The Benefits
VATit managed to unlock the UK and German VAT Claims for Exhibition Company X by using the 6th Directive method. As a result, Exhibition Company X has been able to successfully recover all of its UK and German VAT from expenses incurred since the beginning of 2004. The end result of this has been an overall19% addition to Exhibition Company X’s bottom line. In addition, Exhibition Company X can track their claims with full transparency by using VATit’s “Dragon” claims monitoring and tracking system.