Slow Repayment of VAT Refund from Revenue

Hi,
My business is a couple of years old, and we are investing heavily in R&D for new products, such that our VAT returns routinely result in (sometimes significant) VAT refunds.
This month we submitted our VAT return on ROS as usual but have not received the refund yet. We are getting significant funding next month but this month I was hoping to get the VAT refund to be in a comfortable cashflow position by going into December, allowing me to pay some good suppliers promptly (the refund is in the order of approx 20K).

Normally the refund comes in within a couple of days of filing (i.e. between 14th and 19th of the month), but no sign this month.

I'm wondering whether this is a sign of Revenue acting like a business and pushing out payments to ease cashflow? Have any other businesses found a slow repayment of VAT this month?

I have heard that refunds have slowed up alright.
I am waiting for a refund going back to the July/Aug return. Trying to contact the person dealing with it has proven to be rather difficult. Wonder should I request interest on the delayed refund, or will this incur the wrath of the Revenue.

are all of your other taxes up to date. if your corporation or income tax/prsi payments are not up to date they may have put a hold on it. or they could allocated one of your payments to the wrong account.

i would write to them and include the relevent receipts for your recent tax payments.

for gods sake dont go the heavy hand with the revenue, thats foolhardy. no one wants to have them as an enemy.

Large refunds from new businesses may attract attention for a desk or field audit by Revenue before being approved. That may explain the OP's delay.

Graham_07 said:

Large refunds from new businesses may attract attention for a desk or field audit by Revenue before being approved. That may explain the OP's delay.

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good point.

it seems like this is an new thing to the op, he says he's a couple of years in business and his returns routinely amount to refunds....

I've noticed the rev have been slow to issue refunds to ourselves lately, no doubt due to the current government financial situation.

I wonder if we can get interest and penalties from them for delayed payment....

I wonder if we can get interest and penalties from them for delayed payment....[/quote]

Very good point!!!
I think the refunds have slowed down due to the fact that many companys have gone into liquidation over the past year and companies are writing off bad debtors and thus reclaiming the vat - leaving the departments cash flow stretched.

contemporary said:

I wonder if we can get interest and penalties from them for delayed payment....

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as far as I am aware all government departments automatically pay interest on late payments.
It's at the rate that was set by that late payment rule that was brought in a while ago.

By law, Revenue are not required to pay interest on VAT repayments until after 93 days from receiving a valid claim (i.e. not outstanding information requests etc.) After that the rate is 0.011% per day, so significantly less that the rate you would pay for late payment of tax.

In relation to the OP's post, receiving a VAT repayment in a few days would in my experience be an exception rather than the norm. A few weeks is more standard.

First thing I would do is call the Collector General who should be able to tell you where it is at - has it been referred to your Inspector or is the payment being processed? If it is with the Inspector, give them a call to ask what info they require - will usually be copy invoices - and send this in to them. No point in waiting for their letter in the post if you want the refund.

If you are constantly in a repayment position, you might think about filing your returns just after the period ends - don't wait til the 19th. You can also apply to file monthly VAT returns, but this obviously would not be beneficial if you expect to be VAT payable in the future.

They are definitely quite slow at the moment. I have clients who are always in a refund position and the return is filed through ROS and back inside a week. Over the past six months they have slowed up dramatically, even with CT refunds. I was waiting nearly four weeks for €20,000 that was urgently needed.
However, the Sep-Oct period has really come under pressure due to the large number of claims for refunds due to the introduction of reverse vat accounting. Desk audits are the order of the day which must be slowing up the 'rubber stamping' of any other claims that may require a quick glance. I spoke to Revenue this week who confirmed that they have a lot of desk audits on at the moment. Even though they had made provision to account for the reverse vat, I suspect the refunds are larger and more frequent than they had expected.
Ring the CG in Limerick and they will be able to tell you if your claim has been referred for audit. If it has, contact your local tax office and they will be able to sort it out and speed it up. You may need to send a copy of the VAT analysis and 4/5 of your largest invoices. Don't let it sit with them, they will charge you interest but won't give you any!
Good Luck.

Rang them up yesterday. They confirmed that over 10k, it goes into a 'for review' pile (most of my previous refunds would have been just under 10k).
They said they would process asap though, and that they didn't ned to see the invoices. That said, I'm sure if I hadn't contacted them I'd still be waiting a few weeks hence.

Thanks to everyone for the replies. I'll keep a tight eye on ROS for thenext coupel of days to confirm whether the statement of account has been issued.