A record amount of income tax is owed to HMRC by self-assessment taxpayers, according to data obtained by accountants Price Bailey. The data shows £15.1bn of tax was deferred under time to pay arrangements as at 31 March 2021 – up from £3.9bn outstanding at the end of 2020. A record 864,397 taxpayers deferred tax that was due in the first three months of 2021, up from 665,156 in the last quarter of 2020.
Jay Sanghrajka, tax partner at Price Bailey, commented: ‘This is an astonishing jump in the value of Time to Pay arrangements. Many taxpayers simply were not able to meet their obligations to HMRC and needed to take steps to ensure they did not accrue penalties and interest by missing the payment deadline.’
Sanghrajka noted that, with HMRC’s preferential creditor status having been restored, HMRC ‘will have to make some hard choices towards the end of the year’ although the government should consider extending payment plans to protect jobs and livelihoods, particularly where businesses have been hit by the pandemic.
HMRC figures also show that over 500,000 businesses deferred a total of £34bn in VAT (otherwise due for the period from March to June 2020) under the VAT payment deferral scheme.
A record amount of income tax is owed to HMRC by self-assessment taxpayers, according to data obtained by accountants Price Bailey. The data shows £15.1bn of tax was deferred under time to pay arrangements as at 31 March 2021 – up from £3.9bn outstanding at the end of 2020. A record 864,397 taxpayers deferred tax that was due in the first three months of 2021, up from 665,156 in the last quarter of 2020.
Jay Sanghrajka, tax partner at Price Bailey, commented: ‘This is an astonishing jump in the value of Time to Pay arrangements. Many taxpayers simply were not able to meet their obligations to HMRC and needed to take steps to ensure they did not accrue penalties and interest by missing the payment deadline.’
Sanghrajka noted that, with HMRC’s preferential creditor status having been restored, HMRC ‘will have to make some hard choices towards the end of the year’ although the government should consider extending payment plans to protect jobs and livelihoods, particularly where businesses have been hit by the pandemic.
HMRC figures also show that over 500,000 businesses deferred a total of £34bn in VAT (otherwise due for the period from March to June 2020) under the VAT payment deferral scheme.
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