Andrew Needham looks at what records a business needs to keep when claiming bad debt relief.
When a business claims VAT bad debt relief, it must fulfil certain record-keeping criteria.
What are they, and how long does a business have to keep them?
Bad debt relief
A business can claim bad debt relief for VAT charged to its customers which has not been paid within six months of the due date for payment.
To claim bad debt relief, the business must have paid the VAT over to HMRC; so if it has not paid a VAT return, uses a retail scheme or is using cash accounting, it cannot make a bad debt relief claim.
Relief for bad debts can be claimed provided that:
· the 
