Coronavirus events cancellations: did you consider VAT?

The outbreak of the Coronavirus has already led to the cancellation of many events (e.g. sports events, product shows, concerts, B2B events and conferences) and is likely to result in the cancellation of many more events. In addition, due to travel bans, many participants will be unable to attend the events that are still taking place.

If you have had to cancel events, are considering whether to cancel future events and/or are having to deal with a large number of participants cancelling, you not only need to know what this means for you businesswise, but you want to also mitigate the adverse financial burden as much as possible.

One of the important potential cost factors is VAT. The questions in this respect are:

• Do we have to pay VAT with respect to an event which has been cancelled?
• Can we claim back any VAT we already paid to the FTA?
• Can we still recover the VAT incurred in connection with the event which has been cancelled?
• What are the VAT implications of the "no shows"? Do we need to pay VAT on them?

If you don't have the answer to all these questions, we would be more than happy to discuss them with you via a conference call or online meeting in order to help you and your business avoid any VAT costs and minimise the negative implications of the current situation.
 

We look forward to hearing from you!