Following a recent House of Lords judgement new legislation has given a window of opportunity for businesses to claim for VAT which they had previously either over declared or under claimed but were now out of time to do so.
Businesses have until 31 March 2009 to make a claim for either any output VAT which they had over declared or for any input VAT which they had under claimed relating to the period 1 April 1973 to 1 May 1997.
This one off claim period has been given as the House of Lords ruled that a transitional period should have been allowed when the three year time limit for claims was introduced from 1 May 1997.
It may mean trawling through old records to calculate your claim but for some businesses this could be a windfall. Particularly for any businesses which have successfully made claims for periods within the three year time limit but were previously not able to go back far enough.