14th
July 2012
Dateline October 2012-
MINDING YOUR VAT BUSINESS
Dateline October 2012, is an
instructional guide that seeks to ensure that
everyone - taxpayer and consumer – understands
what will obtain under the new system of taxation
which takes effect from October 2012. This information
is also downloadable from our website at www.vat.gov.lc
or drop by our offices to pick up an instructional
kit.
SHOULD I BE REGISTERED FOR VAT?
 With
the implementation of the Value Added Tax (VAT)
from October this year, a threshold has been
set at which persons must be registered as VAT
taxpayers. For VAT purposes it is not the business
activity which is registered, but the person
who conducts it. The registration covers all
the business activities of that person. Today’s
column gives you information on who should be
registered for VAT, who can register voluntarily,
and why you will benefit from voluntary registration.
Who
should register?
If you conduct a taxable activity that involves
the supply of goods or services, you are required
to register to charge VAT if you meet the registration
threshold.
A “taxable
activity” is defined under Section 6 of
the VAT Act “as an activity which is carried
on continuously or regularly by any person in
Saint Lucia or partly in Saint Lucia, whether
or not for profit, that involves or intends
to involve, in whole or in part, the supply
of taxable goods or services to another person
for consideration.”
In other words
if you are in the business of supplying or selling
taxable goods and/or services, you are undertaking
a taxable activity.
A. Businesses
trading in taxable supplies must within ten
(10) working days register with the Inland Revenue
Department (IRD) if their taxable supplies or
sales (goods and services):
• meet or exceed the threshold of $180,000
in the previous twelve months or less; or
• is reasonably expected to meet or exceed
the threshold at the beginning of any period
of three hundred and sixty five (365) days.
• Additionally, businesses must register
if in the first three months of trading their
taxable supplies exceed forty five thousand
dollars ($45,000).
B. Promoters of public entertainment, licenses
and proprietors of a place of public entertainment
must within 48 hours of the event, if with a
period of twelve or fewer months their annual
taxable supplies is reasonably expected to exceed
$180,000.00.
Registration is only undertaken once. Thereafter,
VAT is charged on every activity by the promoter,
licensee or proprietor.
C. The State,
local authorities and auctioneers must register
on the first day of their trading
in taxable supplies.
A “promoter of public entertainment”
means a person who arranges the staging of public
entertainment, but does not include entertainment
organised by -
(a) a duly recognised educational institution
under the Education Act, Cap.18.01;
(b) the board of management or a parent teacher
association of an approved educational institution;
(c) a person who provides entertainment on a
daily or weekly basis;
(d) a church incorporated or registered in Saint
Lucia under any statute; or
(e) an approved charitable organisation;
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