Director
Steve Botham
MAAT AIIT CTA MIEx
Steve is a Chartered Tax Adviser and AAT Licensed Accountant. He began his career in 1975 as a VAT Officer with HM Customs and Excise and then moved into the accounting profession, working at senior level international firms of accountants, before forming Covertax in 2003.
Steve advises on all aspects of UK and international VAT – he is also a member of the Institute of Export, a partner in VAT Forum and a member of the International VAT Association. He acts as UK VAT Agent for many overseas companies and Government bodies for whom he provides compliance services, including managing VAT audits, as well as providing consultancy advice of cross border transactions.
He sits on the Fraud Forum as a representative of one of the professional bodies.
Xero Adviser Certified.
Customer Due Diligence
We follow strict customer due diligence procedures. This is the anti-money laundering guidance we are required to follow.
UK VAT Agent Ltd is supervised by the Chartered Institute of Taxation for money laundering supervision under the Trust or Service Company providers (“TCSP”) legislation.
UK VAT Agent fulfils the “fit and proper test.”
We identify our customers and, where we have a company, we identify the directors as well as the company. Some of this work we do via an online agency.
Reasons we do this
We like to understand your business so we can provide appropriate advice.
We collect information needed to obtain a UK VAT ID.
We collect information to comply with our obligations under the UK’s anti-money laundering regime.
Typically we will collect the following information. We may ask for more dependent upon your circumstances.
Personal information
Photo page of passport
Address
Home Phone number
Local Tax ID
Business information
All local VAT IDs (we will perform VIES checks)
Copy of certificate of incorporation, or equivalent
Sample purchase invoices
Sample sales invoices
Contracts or pre-contract enquiries with UK customers
Copies of profit & loss accounts and balance sheets
Business plan for the UK
Ultimate ownership of the business