Corporation Tax and VAT: Registration
(asked on 29th August 2025) - View Source
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of (a) digitising and (b) streamlining the HMRC process for issuing (i) VAT registration numbers and (ii) corporation tax authentication codes.
This question was answered on 5th September 2025
As part of the Government’s commitment to improve customer experience through reform and modernisation of tax and customs administration, HMRC recently published the Transformation Roadmap. As part of this plan, HMRC will continue to explore opportunities to digitise their services where it is right to do so. This includes the development of a secure and GDPR compliant digital method to communicate VAT registration details with customers. Until this is developed, VAT registration numbers are sent by physical post which minimises the risk of fraud by preventing the interception of VAT numbers by fraudsters.
As part of the Government’s commitment to improve customer experience through reform and modernisation of tax and customs administration, HMRC recently published the Transformation Roadmap. As part of this plan, HMRC will continue to explore opportunities to digitise their services where it is right to do so. This includes the development of a secure and GDPR compliant digital method to communicate VAT registration details with customers. Until this is developed, VAT registration numbers are sent by physical post which minimises the risk of fraud by preventing the interception of VAT numbers by fraudsters.
Similarly, the activation code for a customer to add corporation tax (CT) services to their business tax account must be delivered by a secure process. HMRC are investing in their legacy corporation tax system in order to provide the foundation for future improvements and will work with customers to ensure that they meet the needs of the diverse CT population.