Dealing with HMRC and payment plans

As January Self-Assessment deadline looms again, this being the 1st where grants are to be declared, not everyone has financially recovered from the impact of COVID on their business yet.

Many are facing a difficult end to January, struggling to figure out how to pay their self-assessment bill.

The financial and economic impact of COVID-19 is unprecedented, it goes without question that there is not a single household potentially effected in one way or another from this. ?As the UK emerges from the pandemic, HMRC will need to strike a balance in pursuing debt and allowing taxpayers time to recover their finances.

• So what happens when you can't pay your Self-Assessment bill?
• What are the options?

We posted an article awhile back that explained HMRCs collection process - HMRC Re-Payment Plan - Our Guide. - Taxdebtshelpandadvice.com

Our goal, was to help everyone understand what HMRC can or can't do, when pursing tax debts, as we have first hand experience of dealing with HMRC & managing our clients tax debts for them.

By virtue of this, we understand completely what you need to expect from HMRC, if you are engaging them directly to discuss options around re paying your Self-Assessment (or any other tax for that matter)

Within our guide (link above) we provide you some basic step by step points, to help you, hopefully, get an affordable arrangement agreed with HMRC. We also explain who certain departments are & what these departments have the power to do, or not to do in many cases.

Such things as;

Making regular payments, regardless of whether you have a plan agreed with HMRC or not, writing in to them, noting down each call or letter, providing financial figures, explaining your situation fully etc - are all key elements to help you control engaging with HMRC on your own.

It's not always as straight forward with HMRC as you'd like to think - No surprise there really!

The main thing with HMRC is not to panic & not to be pushed into an arrangement that you simply cannot afford. HMRC have inherently been good at the bullying tactics, but their attitude must now change to support individuals and businesses coming out of the COVID.

All that is needed, is time to recover and a monthly payment plan can certainly help with this.

We're certainly here if needed but feel free to read our article, as this explains more about HMRC, their collection processes and how individual departments work.