Paying VAT for the first time

There is something in my character that requires me to fill in forms before the deadline, to be legally exact, and generally be a model citizen. Boring.

I went online to register my VAT returns (is that the correct term?). I had signed up to do it online, rather than wait in a queue at the post office. When I registered with the VAT authority I was told that my first return should be for October, and that I had until mid-November to do this. I felt confident, I had entered all my expenditures for October, calculated the VAT on items with depreciation and items without depreciation, items with 100% VAT and items with 2/3rds recognized, etc., etc.

Somehow I ended up at a page where they wanted me to enter each receipt manually. That didn’t sound right and I correctly panicked and phoned Ayelet (my tax advisor). I had ended up at the wrong place. She guided me through the process, which was as simple as I had originally thought, and voila it was completed. But lucky I phoned her. Because of the fact that I only start earning in November, I had nothing to balance the VAT I had spent on my purchases; so I had to put a zero in all the boxes and I’ll report on both VAT spent and VAT received in mid-January.

Now I have to work out how to pay national insurance online.