Readers’ forum: VAT on agricultural machinery sales

I act for a client who buys and sells agricultural machinery mainly to UK-based farmers.

First it has come to light that my client has been issuing self-billed invoices to farmers when they trade in their old tractors and equipment for a new model. But my client has never shown the farmers’ VAT numbers on these invoices. Does this cause him an input tax problem?

Second he has received an order from a UK business that needs a machine for their research centre in Austria. My client will buy the machine from his supplier in Italy and it will be shipped directly from Italy to Austria. What VAT complications does this create particularly now that the UK is no longer part of the EU which Italy and Austria are? Apparently my client’s customer does not have an Austrian VAT number because they only have a...