Out of scope VAT supplier setup

Just a quick question - apologies if this is asked elsewhere but I haven’t found this exact question.

If I use a supplier (e.g. ABC company in China). The invoice they send to me makes no mention of VAT, as expected. I have to pay the VAT in my VAT return (next one is under Making Tax Digital).

  1. Is is correct to set the supplier up as ‘Exempt or out of scope for VAT purpose’ and set the ‘Default VAT Rate’ to 20%?

  2. When I tag their invoice (in my Receipts Hub), will the VAT due at 20% in the UK will automatically be added to my quarterly VAT MTD return?

(for completeness, I’m using the flat rate VAT scheme but I assume that this doesn’t affect the answer).

Thank you.

This is a question for your accountant rather than us. If you’re on flat rate then it shouldn’t be asking you to enter the VAT when adding purchase records to QuickFile anyway as you don’t reclaim VAT under the flat rate scheme (apart from a few specific cases of high value capital assets).

@ian_roberts It’s not to do with reclaiming VAT, it’s to do with not having paid the VAT on the import.
The online HMRC form used to ask for good purchased outside the UK and EU for which VAT wasn’t paid.
I presume MTD VAT will require the same info so that I can pay it in the UK.

I’ve never dealt with any non-EU imports myself so I’m not sure which form you’re referring to - I don’t remember seeing this field on a normal 9 box VAT return (which is all that MTD is concerned with at this stage).

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