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Can we keep the VAT number?

Q. Our limited company trades as architects but we intend to form three limited companies for new activities that we think will be successful following the coronavirus crisis. The companies will all be subsidiaries of the main company and we want them to all be VAT registered from day one. Would it be possible to form a group registration, and could we keep our existing VAT number?

A. There is no problem forming a group registration because the main company controls the other three as it owns more than 50% of the shares in each subsidiary. Unfortunately, an outcome of a group registration is that all existing registrations are cancelled, and a new number is allocated by HMRC. Refer to para. 2.6. of VAT Notice 700/2 (see The next step ) for more information. You must cancel the existing VAT registration by completing Form VAT7 , ticking the box to confirm that the company is joining a VAT group. It would make sense for the existing company to be the representative member of the new group, but this is not compulsory.

For a link to VAT Notice 700/2, visit http://tipsandadvice-vat.co.uk/download (VA 10.09.08).