Business Payment Support Service
Help for viable firms with cashflow problems
HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) has launched a Business Payment Support Service, based on its existing “time to pay” scheme, that will listen “sympathetically” to requests from viable firms with cashflow problems. The agency has hired 60 extra staff to its 600-strong debt team and is planning to receive up to 3,000 calls an hour.
Financial secretary to the Treasury Stephen Timms said: “By speaking directly to an HMRC adviser they should be able to agree an affordable payment timetable without incurring any extra charges, saving hard-working businesses both time and money.”
HMRC will charge interest on any outstanding monies, these charges will stand at 5.5 per cent on National Insurance, income tax, capital gains tax, and stamp duty and 4.25 per cent on corporation tax from December 6, last year, a rate of interest HMRC acknowledged was “lower than the banks” typical lending rates.
An HMRC spokesman explained the main difference with the existing scheme was the decision to allow firms as long as they need to pay up. “Before we were a little stricter on how much time people had to pay,” he said. “Now there is no timeframe as such. What we want is people to pay their taxes and we are making it easier for them to do so.”
In essence the move is designed to help smaller companies, partnerships and individuals that are worried they are not generating enough cash to pay the tax that falls due in the following months.
Just a week after the Chancellor announced the ‘’time to pay’’ support service, HMRC had reached agreements with businesses to spread more than £55m in tax payments over a longer period.
Most of the requests so far have been made by small companies. The Treasury says they range from fencing and roofing contractors to poster manufacturers and companies in the health and beauty business.
A Treasury spokesman said: “Any business can call HMRC to discuss options available to them and get an immediate response.”
Additional late payment surcharges on tax included in the arrangement have been waived. Companies calling the HMRC ‘’hotline’’ – 0845 302 1435 – are asked for details about their tax problems plus information on the state of the business.
