Worried that HMRC will darken your door?

Worry is a huge energy-sapper, but comes with the territory for small business owners. However, when things become so challenging that we're not sure if we can pay our taxes, action needs to be taken to save our sanity and protect us and our businesses.

There's little point putting your head in the proverbial sand, getting some advice and communicating with creditors is the solution, even if that creditor is His Majesty's Revenue & Customs (HMRC). Ask your accountant to support you with this as they will have relevant experience and know what information you will need to be armed with before making the call.

You might be surprised to learn that nearly 44,800 UK taxpayers have already sorted their upcoming 31 January tax bill by setting up a payment plan, known as a Time To Pay (TTP) arrangement.

Provided taxpayers owe less than ￡30,000, they can use HMRC's affordability checker for help to decide on what arrangement will work best for them.

https://www.gov.uk/difficulties-paying-hmrc/pay-in-instalments

In doing so they are preventing HMRC from sending details to a debt collection agency, affecting your credit score and also increasing the risk of a tax inspection. For those operating a gross CIS certificate, watch out - late payment of taxes may lead to this being withdrawn causing you further cash flow problems.

All of my clients have had plenty of forewarning of what they need to settle next week, and will be receiving a reminder from me this afternoon of how to remit payment if they haven't already dealt with their liabilities. Hopefully, your accountant has been keeping you informed and you have been putting funds aside throughout the year for this annual boost to the Government's coffers.

In the words of Benjamin Franklin, "nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes".