I spent yesterday and most of the morning waiting for my moving estimate. When he call and mentioned something about the government getting its share in VAT, the little light went on in my head.
Yes, they could email me the invoice and would provide the service without the VAT should I be able to give them the correct paperwork.
Since this was saving well more than ₤100, even with the drive to Croughton I would come out ahead.
1100 – leave Camberley
12xx – arrive at Croughton. stop at Post Office. Go to bank to get money.
12xx – go to VAT office.
Today is a post “Family Afternoon” in honor of 4th of July. All the official offices closed at noon. The park is open and the grills are hot. I am standing there with invoice, money, and no where to go.
After stopping at the library to drop off more DvDs and audio books, I decided I had nothing to lose. Trying the VAT office door. It opened and Someone was in the back.
Lovely woman, she listened to my tale of woe (getting the invoice two hours ago, driving 120km, movers coming on Monday, not having TCS orders yet so that I could not get official transportation to pick it up and put it my stuff into temp storage, etc).
She said she would see what she could do. Heading out the door, she found the other two people from the office and got them to come back. Within 20 minutes, they did the paperwork, called Texas to get authorization, cut the check and wished me well.
Kudo’s to the Air Force, I have never been on an Army post that offered that kind of service. I dropped a thank you email to the commander, he needs to know his people go above and beyond.
So, there I was at the end of the day, facing a house full of stuff that needed to be sorted and organized. And exhausted before I even began.
