Animal charity hit with £12k bill over VAT dispute

Vale Wildlife Hospital treats animals including badgers and foxes

An animal charity has been charged more than £12,000 after its energy provider said that they had failed to provide the correct VAT certificate.

Vale Wildlife Hospital & Rehabilitation Centre in Beckford, near Tewkesbury, was informed by British Gas that without the certificate they would have to pay the standard 20% VAT rate, rather than the 5% charity rate.

In a statement, British Gas said that they are "required by HMRC to request an accurate VAT certificate" and that they will "continue to work with" the charity.

Charity founder Caroline Gould said that they are "back to square one" and that they "simply cannot submit the suggested figures."

Charity founder Caroline Gould believes the charity should still be paying the lower rate of VAT

Ms Gould said that there had never previously been a problem and believes the charity are entitled to pay the lower rate because more than 60% of the premises are used for charitable purposes.

"As a charity, we've always submitted a VAT declaration and it's always been approved straight away. We did the same with British Gas when we started with them, which was in November 2023," Ms Gould added.

"The first thing we had was just an email saying that they no longer thought we were entitled to the 5% VAT anymore, so from now on, they would be taking the 20%.

"I opened the bank account one morning a couple of weeks ago and found that they'd taken £12,200 out of our account."

Vale Wildlife Hospital treated more than 8,000 animals in 2024

Ms Gould said that she believed that the utility company had overlooked the fact that the charity raised significant funds outside of the hospital building.

"They can see from our accounts that we do a lot of sale of goods, but we've got two charity shops," she said.

"We sell on eBay, which is done by volunteers outside of the hospital. We go and do talks, which is outside of the hospital. We do outside fundraisers.

"So the vast majority of our sale of goods, as they've put it, is outside of the hospital. But they won't listen."

Vale Wildlife Hospital, which celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2024, relies on public donations to continue its work, with running costs of about £75,000 a month.

It treated more than 8,000 animals last year, including foxes, badgers, birds, rabbits and hedgehogs.

British Gas say that they have contacted the charity repeatedly, but that the information received in May "didn't have the correct information for us to establish the eligibility for a VAT reduction."