Bring me sunshine
If you have solar panels on your roof, you probably pay a bit less for your electricity – and you probably sell some to your power company. A recent European Court ruling has held that you could be regarded as being 'in business' for VAT purposes – your own personal utility company.
The case was about an Austrian who wanted to deduct the VAT in the cost of buying the equipment. The judges ruled that he had a contract that would produce income regularly over an indefinite period, and that had all the hallmarks of a business – he could deduct input tax, and then account for output tax on his income.
HMRC in the UK have yet to comment on this. If you aren't already VAT-registered, you won't have to on account of small sales of electricity because you won't reach the threshold of £79,000 a year. But if you are already registered for some other business, HMRC could decide that you have to bring home generation into the VAT account.
We'll be keeping a weather eye on this.
