How to create a VAT return

After creating your business, you can create a VAT return for it. This article assumes that you have enrolled the business in MTD and will take you through the process of ‘fetching’ a VAT period from HMRC. Please note that, under the MTD service, you cannot add your own VAT periods to TaxCalc or any other software. These have to be retrieved from HMRC’s system.
(If you haven't yet registered for MTD, the video above shows you how to create a VAT period).

Click on the Open VAT Returns button. This will take you to the screen which will display all VAT returns completed or retrieved from HMRC.

Click on the Fetch VAT Periods button. Anything involving MTD requires you to authorise TaxCalc to work with the HMRC systems. You should only need to authorise TaxCalc for your business every 18 months, or if new functionality becomes available that you want to use. If you need to authorise TaxCalc you’ll see a window asking you to do so for MTD VAT. Click on the Authorise button to continue. The next screen takes you through HMRCs authorisation process. Click Continue and you’ll need to log in using your HMRC government gateway credentials (a user id with 12 digits and a corresponding password).

Once logged in you just need to confirm that you’re granting your copy of TaxCalc permission to view and submit your returns when you ask it to. In case you’re concerned, this is only for your copy of TaxCalc on the machine that you installed it on. Click on Grant Authority to confirm. That’s TaxCalc authorised!

Now click on the Fetch button to keep going. You need to enter the dates that you want to fetch VAT periods for; we would recommend that these are the dates of your VAT Return period but they can also be a period of your choosing.

Once you have entered the dates, click on Search. The VAT period available should be shown. Click on Fetch and the VAT return will be created, ready for you to complete.

Click Open once you have selected the correct VAT period and you can start completing your VAT return.