Invoice from Sole Trader

hubert1946

Hi All

Very grateful for any thoughts and feedback on this.

A sole trader supplier invoices my company and he is not VAT registered and I suspect that he doesn't declare the income. What are the risks:
a) for me to pay him and
b) for him not to declare the income.
The amount is relatively small, just under 1000€. Is it legal? Will this fly under the radar, so to speak?


Thanks in advance.

Hubert.

devildriver

The onus is on the sole trader to look after his tax and VAT. Any issues with Revenue are entirely his to deal with.

aristotle25

As you may know you don't need to register for VAT as a sole trader until you hit an expected income of €35k or something like that.

Whether the sole trader declares this income and is tax compliant is not something you need to worry about, it is the sole traders responsibility.

pfurey101

Hi Hubert,

I'm a sole trader and hit the VAT threshold last year, so I started charging VAT from May of last year.

Up till then all my invoices did not have VAT on them and were not a problem to any supplier - well maybe the bigger suppliers couldnt get their head around it initially. I was also Tax compliant all those years and included that number and expiry date on all my Invoices.

As the others have said, it is his responsibility and probably the worst that could happen is that he could come looking for the VAT element st some later stage!!! Maybe you should ask him for a copy of his current Tax Compliance Cert? Your choice.

Cheers

hubert1946

Ok. Thanks for the responses. Let me ask a follow up question:

I understand that he is responsible for the vat and the taxation. But the guy is a bit inexperienced and I don't want to see him make a mess of things. Say he takes the payment and never declares it as income is this small amount going to fly under the radar or will it automatically cause problems?

Cheers

H

neris

hubert1946 wrote: »

Ok. Thanks for the responses. Let me ask a follow up question:

I understand that he is responsible for the vat and the taxation. But the guy is a bit inexperienced and I don't want to see him make a mess of things. Say he takes the payment and never declares it as income is this small amount going to fly under the radar or will it automatically cause problems?

Cheers

H

it may fly under the radar until he gets a revenue audit but the whole thing falls back on him to declare any monies owed to revenue.

Are you worried that if anything happens between him & revenue yiull get drawn in or worried hes fleecing you on undeclared vat?

jimmii

You aren't going to be held responsible for his tax affairs do you have any reason to suspect that he doesn't declare it? As long as you do everything right and don't try and hide the payment or anything I think you just have to let them be I would be wary of doing business with someone that I thought was trying to cheat the system in any way who is to say they won't try screw you over at some point too.

hubert1946

Thanks Neris

I think I have more or less satisfied myself that it won't come back to me.

I am also just looking out for him.

Even if I am not in trouble it would be bad press for me if he got in hot water with revenue...

Anyone got any thoughts on the chances??

jimmii

Why would it be bad press for you that one of the companies you do business with got into trouble with the revenue? Is it a relative that you are helping or advising or something? I think unless it is imperative that you do business with them then I think you should probably look elsewhere for what they offer as you seem to have some serious doubts about them.

Peterdalkey

Hubert, you clearly have little to be worrying about. It is simply not your concern and to be blunt, none of your business!