- 14 Jan
HMRC "Time to Pay" Scheme
At the end of last year there was much speculation about the impact of the withdrawal of the HMRC's "Time to Pay" scheme, that has allowed 160,000 businesses additional time to pay their outstanding tax liabilities and VAT. This was followed by the announcement from the government that the "Time to Pay" scheme is to be extended for "as long as is needed".
This prompts the question - as to exactly what "as long as is needed" means and also "as long as is it is needed" by who?
It seems inevitable that this scheme is going to be withdrawn at some point in order to ease the public finances and when that happens there is going to be an impact on all those businesses that have funded their businesses using money that should have paid outstanding tax and VAT liabilities.
Sound advice would seem to be to put in place the finance now to be able to settle those liabilities rather than waiting until the government decides that the "Time to Pay" scheme is no longer needed at which point all those other businesses will also be looking to raise the money to pay their tax and VAT liabilities.