Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what recent steps his Department has taken to ensure that VAT registrations for trusts are processed in a (a) time-considerate and (b) effective manner.

Trusts are not treated differently from any other customer when they apply to register for VAT, and therefore the response will need to be ascribed to all VAT Registration applications.

HMRC continues to deal with most VAT Registrations applications within their usual 40 working days, however they have seen more applications requiring additional checks.

HMRC are dedicating extra resource to this and they expect service levels to improve quickly. Businesses including Trusts can continue trading while they register.

HMRC expect to have improved the on-hand position in VAT Registration significantly and to have reduced those cases that are older than 40 working days, by end of December 2022.

HMRC has also targeted the resource to their VAT Registration telephone helpline to help genuine customers to expedite their applications.