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Concerns over future of Time to Pay

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16th Aug 2011
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The future of HMRC’s Time to Pay scheme has been called into question today by a team of independent business advisors who claim the initiative’s survival could be under threat.

UK Business Advisors (UKBA) said HMRC’s decision to no longer publish statistics about the scheme, which enables businesses to spread tax payments over a number of stages through the course of the year, suggested the future of the scheme is questionable – which would threaten the survival of many small businesses across the country.

The body pointed to the latest set of stats on the scheme from HMRC, which revealed the department is only granting Time to Pay to one third of 2009’s level. A refusal by HMRC to allow repeat applications to take place has been cited as the cause of the reduction.

According to UKBA, the statistics – Key Performance Indicators for the initiative – are “an important benchmark to measure performance improvements and deterioration, from which further actions can be made”.

Chris Scanlon at UK Business Advisors commented “The loss of this particular piece of information in the economic jigsaw is a cause for concern. The UK Business Advisors thoroughly endorse the publication of Key Performance Indicators to measure performance and thereby trigger appropriate actions”. He went on to say “More importantly we need to keep Time to Pay in place as a way of helping business through these very turbulent economic times”.

In a statement, a HMRC spokesperson said there are no plans to close the Time to Pay initiative, and added: “It will continue to be business as usual”.

“HMRC continues to offer a sympathetic ear to businesses – and individuals – in temporary financial difficulty, and will continue to offer the BPSS (business payment support service) as part of our time to pay arrangements, for as long as it is needed,” said the spokesperson.

"We remain committed to doing everything we can to support viable businesses going through short term cash flow difficulties via time to pay arrangements. However, there is little HMRC can do for a business whose viability is dependent on not paying the UK taxes to which they are liable, or on special treatment not available to other customers with similar tax affairs.”

It was revealed in May that nearly one in 10 (9.3%) of all applicants to the Time to Pay scheme  in the first quarter of 2011 were refused, compared with 2.7% and 6% in 2009 and 2010 respectively.

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By Top_Cat
16th Aug 2011 18:28

Why hide ?

"HMRC’s decision to no longer publish statistics about the scheme, which enables businesses to spread tax payments over a number of stages through the course of the year, suggested the future of the scheme is questionable". 

 

 

So much for "open government".

What are they afraid of ?

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