Member Article

Local businesses warned as Business Payment Support Service winds down

A North East accountancy firm is warning taxpayers who receive help from the Business Payment Support Service (BPSS) that this support is now beginning to wind down.

The BPSS scheme was introduced in November 2008 to help businesses and individuals who were having difficulty paying their tax on time.

Graham Purvis from Robson Laidler commented: “The scheme is still running and if the taxpayer agrees on a Time to Pay plan and keeps to the agreement, HRMC will waive penalties and surcharges, although there will still be late payment interest charged.

“So far 61 percent of the total number of arrangements have been for a period of three months or fewer.”

However, the numbers of these “Time to Pay” agreements being awarded are dwindling, and HRMC has recently refused over 23,000 applications, a trend which had been attributed to the increasing numbers of repeat requests.

If a business continually makes repeat requests, HRMC will scrutinise it more closely to ensure it is not in a position to pay and is actually a viable enterprise. Requests are usually refused if the taxman feels that giving further time to pay would put the tax already owed at risk.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .