I learned the hard way
I rented out my R22s, before the days of the R44, and subsequently my R44s to a flying school.
Like many owners I was obsessed by recovering the VAT and whilst I had my trading company it was very convenient to have a flight school take care of all the nitty gritty operational stuff.
Having ordered my current R44 a couple of years ago I sat down one day to work out the running costs. I was horrified to see that it cost £16k a year more than if I had operated it privately.
Perhaps I was lucky as I only had one major problem in the 20 years that I rented the aircraft back to a flying school - a SFH started my R44 with the throttle open. The engine was completely trashed.
Additionally there were always a number on dings, scrapes and scratches, lost fuel caps, master switches left on flattening the battery and a number of other minor niggles which still cost money and aggravation. Although to be fair, the flight school did sort out a number of issues without cost to me.
Although I am not fully clued up on their current thinking, HMRC are taking a much tougher line about refunding VAT on helicopters and you may also get clobbered with a Benefit in Kind assessment if you choose to operate your helicopter through a company.
If you do pay the VAT and change your mind however, you do get two years to register for VAT and reclaim the tax - double check that with your accountant. I recommend that you get all tax advice from an accountant and not from the company you are buying the helicopter from - they can hardly be said to be impartial neither do they know your exact circumstances.
As already mentioned on this thread there are a lot of R44s out there (approx 300 shown on the CAA G-INFO data base as opposed to just under 200 R22s at the moment) and there are some ridiculous rates out in the market. Don't get sucked into this. As Biggles99 says the rates are much higher in Europe with the result that helicopter training and SFH is much more expensive too. The UK has more private helicopters than the next three biggest European countries put together.
Paying the VAT myself and limiting the number of people who fly it has halved the insurance and slashed other costs too. In cash terms I recovered the VAT outlay by two years saving on operational costs.
Helicopter ownership is not cheap but it is a lot of fun.